Rosberg made his own luck

Nico Rosberg might be the first reigning World Champion to end his career since Alain Prost in 1993, but there’s something more to take from that than just pure statistics.

The motorsport media industry has oscillated heavily towards romanticism since the release of Senna. This is evident in driver polls and reactionary articles in the face of the flashes of brilliance shown by Max Verstappen and the self-proclamations to Ayrton’s legacy by Lewis Hamilton.

Make no mistake, Formula One is as much about self-promotion as it is about the driving (just ask Paul di Resta), but for a publication to even consider printing the headline, ‘Is Rosberg a Deserving World Champion’ is buying into the mystique a stretch too far – even if said publication’s new owners crave sensationalism over the fourth estate.

But back to Rosberg. If we’re going to stoop to comparisons, then I’d suggest Nico is as much a Prost-man – or even Jackie Stewart-man – as Jenson Button ever was and (admittedly) those tenuous correlations explain a lot about Nico’s championship and subsequent retirement.

To place Hamilton and Rosberg in simple categories where one is considered the gifted natural and the other the hard-working thinker, grossly underestimates the work-ethic of the former and the capacity of the latter. I do however believe Rosberg’s natural (and unnatural) attributes played more of a factor in deciding this year’s championship than sheer luck.

Take Baku for example. A steering panel issue thwarted Hamilton’s progress during the European Grand Prix, with the British driver blaming FIA radio rules from allowing the Mercedes team from disclosing a solution. Rosberg however was experiencing the same problem and solved it accordingly without team assistance – something you might expect from a driver with an engineering degree and four languages in his repertoire.

The signs of Rosberg being able to manage a wounded car were evident at the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix, where Rosberg was able to bring a Mercedes with severe electric-brake issues home for a podium finish, while Hamilton was forced into retirement. I’m not suggesting that Hamilton’s use of an extra combustion unit, three extra turbochargers and MGU-Hs, and an extra MGU-K, energy store were all driver-related failures this year, but sometimes speed isn’t all there is to winning races – despite Lewis going to great lengths to remind the gallery that he was “the fastest man all year”.

Reliability wasn’t the only key to Rosberg’s championship. As Karun Chandok also pointed out during testing, the German spent considerably more time than his teammate practicing race starts to perfect the precarious Mercedes clutch. This held him in good stead in races at Australia, Bahrain, Spain and Italy where Hamilton made poor starts. Spain however was another piece of the puzzle, with Rosberg refusing to be bullied by Hamilton after mistakenly putting his Mercedes into harvesting mode.

Rosberg’s new-found, no-quarter given philosophy out both drivers into the fence, but gave Hamilton serious food for thought about trying such a move again. Rosberg was a chastened man after Mercedes management hung him out to dry for daring to bat for himself in Belgium 2014, but realised that if he was to win a World Championship, he would have to be more ruthless on-track and bear the brunt of internal politics – even if that meant going against his own nature.

Nico is a pretty down-to-earth, straight-talking individual and one I suspect hasn’t deviated much from his upbringing, despite what Lewis Hamilton might claim – I don’t see Nico freezing his pet’s embryo’s and posting it on Instagram.

Prost and Stewart refused to change their on-track approach to win world championships, instead exploring the minutiae of their craft to extract an advantage. Rosberg has done that – and perhaps a bit more – to take his own crown, but it has come at a personal cost at a time when he is building a family and quite rightly has called it a day.

“This season, I tell you, it was so damn tough” said Rosberg at the FIA prize giving gala. “I pushed like crazy in every area after the disappointments of the last two years; they fuelled my motivation to levels I had never experienced before. And of course that had an impact on the ones I love, too – it was a whole family effort of sacrifice, putting everything behind our target. I cannot find enough words to thank my wife Vivian; she has been incredible. She understood that this year was the big one, our opportunity to do it, and created the space for me to get full recovery between every race, looking after our daughter each night, taking over when things got tough and putting our championship first.”

Unfathomably, the media anticipation around how Rosberg would respond to losing two championships to Hamilton has been largely forgotten in lieu of how “unlucky” Hamilton was perceived to have been this season. I’m sorry, but as Frank Gardner once said, “you make your own luck in motor racing” and Rosberg has done just that.

Going against type however is an exhausting process at the best of times and doing so over an entire Formula One season is enough for a lifetime. Nico recognises that and has justifiably decided to call it a day. As Jackie Stewart famously said, “winning isn’t enough”. There more to life than that and Nico and his family deserve all that’s coming to them in their new life.

As to who should replace Rosberg at Mercedes, that will likely be played out for another year, with Mercedes junior driver Pascal Wehrlein likely to get the nod while most other drivers see out the final year of their contracts.

With Alonso, Vettel and Ricciardo likely be at the top of the 2018 shopping list, I’d like to see a certain Carlos Sainz get the nod. An apolitical driver as ever there was, he’s just as quick and intelligent as Rosberg and – like his father – has a work ethic and mental application that is a rare commodity in motor sport.

No doubt, the musical chairs will be in full-swing with more than a few surprises in store.