Former Mercedes star Nico Rosberg delivered a frosty response to a reporter’s ‘quite horrible’ joke about his history with Lewis Hamilton.
The 39-year-old was team-mates with Hamilton up until the 2016 season, which is when he retired from the sport after beating the Brit after winning the Drivers’ Championship.
In the two years prior to his success, Rosberg fell just short of claiming the title and had to watch as team-mate Hamilton claimed the glory. It’s a difficult situation for any driver and one that McLaren’s Lando Norris finds himself in with team-mate Oscar Piastri, who recently caused controversy at the Italian Grand Prix.
Piastri drove another excellent race overnight to finish second behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, with Norris completing the podium in third.
McLaren were well positioned to control the race, but Piastri appeared to surprise Norris by overtaking him on the opening lap.
Following the race, many fans of Norris slammed Piastri for jeopardising his teammate’s chances of catching Max Verstappen.
Now, Rosberg has been asked to weigh in on the situation and in an interview with Sky Sports, said: ‘It is hard, though, on Oscar because Oscar, in his contract, you will have a number one contract, yeah?
‘It won’t say in his contract that, ‘You need to help Lando’. And Oscar is driving brilliantly also, so he deserves every opportunity, just from his point of view, to get race wins.
‘Plus, let’s also remember mathematically he can still be world champion, so there’s also that. I mean, he’s not that far behind Lando, what is it, 40 points or something? So he’s not that far behind either so it’s a hard ask on Oscar to start forfeiting race wins, potentially.’
In response, Sky Sports’ F1 presenter Natalie Pinkham said: ‘Absolutely. I mean, you don’t want to see your team-mate win a world championship in a car that you knew you could potentially have won it in as well. I mean, that’s got to be the worst.’
Rosberg said: ‘Yes Natalie, that is the worst. It’s actually quite horrible, Natalie.’
Pinkham said: ‘I know, sorry about that.’
After the incident at the recent Italian GP, Norris admitted that he was surprised by the move from Piastri on Lap 1.
‘A little bit (surprised). Obviously I would have just braked a bit later if I needed to. We had a big gap behind and, between us two cars, there’s no risk,’ Norris told Sky Sports F1.
‘I feel like he got way too close for comfort – we both easily could have been out in that corner if I braked one metre later.
‘Obviously if I could rewind I would do stuff slightly differently, but it is what it is. Oscar drove a good race and so did Charles.’
