Nico Rosberg turned his controversial pole position into a faultless victory when his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton lost both his vision and his lead in the drivers’ championship.

As mounting attention on their rivalry created a tense atmosphere around the Mercedes team, Rosberg delivered a flawless demonstration of speed, race-craft and good manners to claim a second successive triumph in the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday.

His victory enabled him to regain momentum in the title race and, significantly after a difficult weekend, left Hamilton struggling in his wake, on and off the circuit.

Having set himself the goal of claiming his maiden pole and a second victory on the streets of the Mediterranean principality, the 2008 winner Hamilton completed his day by not only fending off charging Australian Daniel Ricciardo, of Red Bull, to keep second place, but also ducking probing questions in a post-race news conference.

To one reporter, who asked about his suggestion on Saturday that he may copy Ayrton Senna’s actions to take revenge after Rosberg’s off-circuit excursion on his final qualifying lap, Hamilton replied by saying “it was just a joke”.

He also had to explain how Rosberg’s father Keke, the ‘original flying Finn’ who won the 1983 Monaco Grand Prix after taking the world title the previous year by winning a single race, had been the inspiration for his comments, widely published on Friday, about their contrasting family backgrounds fuelling his appetite for success.

To many other questions, he half-smiled or remained silent, adding, it seemed, a temporary loss of speech to his loss of vision, points and pride.

Ricciardo finished third ahead of Fernando Alonso of Ferrari in a much closer finish than expected after some dirt had crept into Hamilton’s left eye 14 laps from the finish and ruined his hopes of catching Rosberg to fight for victory.

It was Rosberg’s second consecutive triumph in his home event, his second win of the 2014 season and the fifth win of his career.

Victory lifted him four points clear of Hamilton in the championship.