Fernando Alonso says 2016 may be Nico Rosberg's best chance of winning a championship.
Rosberg leads the championship by 39 points, with his main title rival Lewis Hamilton a further four points behind, after five races of the season. That advantage could have been greater coming to Monte Carlo this weekend had the Mercedes pair not collided while Rosberg led on the opening lap of the Spanish Grand Prix.
Reflecting on that crash, Alonso thinks both men did what they should have done in the scenario which unfolded following Rosberg's engine mode error.
"[Rosberg] drove fantastically these first races of the championship and he deserved the victory in many of them," Alonso said. "In Barcelona I think it was a very unique situation what happened. With Nico losing the performance from the MGU-K deployment in the middle of a corner, you commit to one side because you only have one move to do so you commit to the right.
"Lewis arrived so fast with all the deployment, he committed to the right because it was the only way so they found themselves with no opportunity to improve that situation anymore. So it's just an unlucky situation for both of them but I think they will reset everything here."
Alonso has not added to the two titles he won in 2005 and 2006 despite three near misses since, in 2007, 2010 and 2012. In 2010 he and Mark Webber lost out in agonising fashion after a strategy call at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix took both out of contention and allowed Sebastian Vettel to secure his first title.
It was as close as Alonso's friend Webber came to a championship and the Spaniard thinks Rosberg could tense up later in the year if he starts to dwell too much on the opportunity in front of him.
"Nico has a good advantage in terms of points but the championship is long and we saw Lewis stopping with some reliability problems sometimes so it can happen to Nico as well and equal the championship quite quickly for Lewis. Definitely it is a good opportunity for Nico and sometimes you feel it is your only opportunity for the championship.
"It happened to Mark as well in 2010, it's some kind of one-off and sometimes it's difficult to execute at the end when the last races are coming. But so far I think he's enjoying a good advantage, good performance, he's in good form, so he's enjoying it."