He carried over his form from the 2015 season, winning the first four races to lead Hamilton by 43 championship points although Hamilton suffered reliability issues in two of those first four races. Rosberg and Hamilton made high-speed contact at the after which Hamilton took the championship lead from Rosberg over the next eight races after sub-par results from the former. During the mid-season interval, Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda paid a special visit to Rosberg's home in Ibiza, to help Rosberg regain his confidence and to bounce back. Rosberg changed his diet to remove sugars from his body and abstained from alcohol. Rosberg mulled over how to further better his performance; to avoid the strain of starting a diet, he refrained from cycling, losing of muscle in both his legs. He went on to win in Belgium, Singapore and Japan, and achieved three-second-place finishes in a row to enter the season-ending leading Hamilton by 12 points.