Nico Rosberg, A Recent F1 Podcast And Interesting Hamilton Views

They were once close friends and amazing teammates. But that was once upon a time, where the childhood friendship that had apparently blossomed over competitive racing events during their formative careers paved way for a great partnership in the top-tier of motor-racing. Then came the seasons, 2014, 2015 and ultimately, 2016, the latter where Nico Rosberg eventually got the better of Sir Lewis Hamilton after having lost consecutive seasons on the Drivers’ standings to the Stevenage-born driver.

But whether he’s racing or podcasting, spending time with his varied and interesting entrepreneurial endeavours or with the now-noted Rosberg X Racing team, Nico Rosberg has always had an interesting perspective and at times, thought-provoking one’s on his one-time close friend and subsequently, archival Sir Lewis Hamilton.

While on the same track, neither would give each other an extra inch, it would also lead to moments of profound friendship particularly in the years leading up to F1, where both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg as avid youngsters wanted to have the best for one other.

But as the years wore on, the friendship subsided and with the battle to the top contention for victory began heating up at Mercedes, the duo realised that, of course, there could only be one race winner and hence, that led to a clash and maybe a fallout on the way teammates work or don’t work that well, after all.

Whatever it is, Nico Rosberg, the world champion of the year 2016, has still followed his former teammate’s career quite closely and has had a few interesting observations to make about the driver who is now Ferrari-bound. He would reckon in a podcast feature on Sky F1 the following observations about the seven-time world champion:

He is at a place where he’s saying to himself, ‘I’m not fast anymore’, and that’s really singled out to qualifying. “The problem with our sport is that if you don’t qualify high up, you really struggle, even though he still seems to be at his very, very best in race pace – we’ve seen over and over again his racing pace is just still insanely strong. But when you qualify poorly all the time almost, and he says himself he’s just not quick enough in qualifying, then that’s something that was weighing on the shoulders so much during the end of the year, because you know you when you get beaten from your team-mate who’s younger, and let’s remember, the team-mate is not a World Champion, the team-mate is just a four-time race winner [three, sic.]. And when you get beaten all the time, and in the case of Lewis, who’s statistically the GOAT [greatest of all time, ed.], then that’s really tough, and especially going forward.”

Having said the above, it remains to be seen as to what difference might Sir Lewis Hamilton actually add to his future Ferrari team, an iconic outfit no doubt with which he’s committed for the imminent future. And most importantly, one wonders as to what may Nico Rosberg feel about his former Mercedes teammate’s switch to the Italian stable.