The fine line between friendship and being enemies was crossed in the Mercedes garage during the 2016 Formula 1 season, a year full of tension between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg due to the fight for the world title. The duo of the silver arrows had grown up in a very healthy environment, with fights of all kinds in their time in karting, even sharing lower categories until their arrival at the Great Circus in the mid- 2000s .
In the case of the German, he made his debut with Williams in 2006, but the Briton did not take much longer, and just one year later he accompanied him on the grid, although in a serious world championship candidate, McLaren.
By whims of fate, both ended up in Mercedes when the German team had what was possibly the most dominant single-seater in all of history, so the only rival on the track was his own teammate.
After two seasons losing to Hamilton, Rosberg was determined to change the dynamic, and that’s how, helped in part by the Englishman’s incidents, he became world champion at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, repeating what his father, Keke , 34 years later.
The high point of the rivalry came in Spain, after his accident at the start in which the team leader himself, Toto Wolff , had to intervene so that it would not be repeated. This tense episode, added to those of the rest of the season, caused the German to decide to retire when he won the championship to spend more time with his family.
Now, years later, when asked about his relationship with Hamilton , the German does not hide what happened, since they went from having a beautiful friendship forged on the circuits to being enemies: “It’s not something that came from before, it happened while We were fighting for the title.”
“Unfortunately, that’s the way things are, friendships don’t work when you fight for victory in every race or for the world championship,” he admitted to Eurosport.de, before questioning when the moment was when the relationship broke down.
“It built up every weekend, if you want to be a champion, you can’t play. You have to test the limits and get into gray areas to win, especially when both drivers are at such a high level,” Rosberg said.
“Over time, you start wandering around those areas at all times,” acknowledged the German. “I don’t regret anything, it was a sensational time and we had a great fight.”
“I’m very proud of that, but now we have a more neutral relationship, which is fine, and it’s funny because we’re fighting each other again in Extreme E,” Rosberg said, referring to the teams the two drivers own in the electrical category.
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