Nico Rosberg: The Legacy and Unanswered Questions
?Jesus Christ! The Formula One World Champion has retired! At the peak of his sport. Joining a list that is limited to the likes of Bjorn Borg, Mark Spitz and Joe DiMaggio, Rosberg retires as the man! He explained that his was his dream and now it has been achieved there Is nothing else for him.
He came up with Lewis Hamilton and the two were friends from their karting days. He was signed by Williams where he scored the highest ever score on the engineering aptitude test. He started his first season brilliantly but the majority of the season was disappointing. After another year with a poor car it was better in 2008 and he scored his first podium in Australia and followed it up with a second in Singapore. Another season with an average Williams car despite his impressive performances, led to him joining returning giants, Mercedes. The first two seasons saw him finish seventh in the championship ahead of storied teammate Michael Schumacher. In China, the following season Rosberg would take his first pole position and victory. The following season he saw his teammate change as Lewis Hamilton replaced Michael Schumacher. He would claim two victories that season, including a famous win at Monaco replacing his Dad, 30 years prior but still only finished fifth. The past three years have seen the Mercedes as a dominant team with Lewis and Nico battling for the title. Despite five wins and eleven pole positions, Lewis would take the 2014 title. The following season was a bit more sided for Lewis, but Nico still finished second taking five wins. Finally his time came in 2016 after building up and defending his lead. He had nine wins off eight pole positions; numbers that could have been affected by choosing to take second place points to maintain his lead rather than race aggressively.
Nico was such a polished driver without the extreme aggressiveness of Hamilton or ability to put in big laps like Vettel or composed style of Button. He was clinical and quick, especially over one lap. He may not be remembered for his passing (troubles of sharing a circuit with Lewis) but he was more than capable of a quality overtake. Nico was more meticulous in fine tuning his car than Lewis who would often find a general balance and adapt. Nico was dangerous especially if his car had a lot of grip and looked much more fluid than Lewis in the corners due to the front balancing. He is one of 33 Formula One Champions and will probably go down as one of the top 30 drivers of all time. His era was so strong with Raikonnen, Webster, Vettel, Alonso, Button and Hamilton all driving at the same time. In terms of comparisons you have to remove the multi time champions. He will probably be remembered as a better driver than Button and Webber with Raikonnen a debate for another day. Kimi perhaps had more natural ability if you could pick a race but over the course of a seasons, Rosberg had far more consistency.
It has seemingly come as a massive shock to everyone in Formula One. Already everyone was looking at the battle next season between the two Mercedes drivers. Alonso, Verstappen and Vettel, the three big names in Formula One are contracted for next season. Pretty much everyone is. Mercedes could agitate and pay to break the contract and if so you have to imagine only Verstappen is completely untouchable. Pascal Wehrlein is being feted as he is in the Mercedes set up already and scored Manor's only point last season. Despite this he did not impress massively and it could be quite a large step down. Force India also chose Esteban Ocon over Wehrlein to replace Perez for Force India which maybe suggests he is not top quality. Bottas is the other possibility as he would a bit less expensive and likely to cause huge arguments than the two superstars. He is also a proven quality driver who would be good enough to make Mercedes strong favourites for the Constructors Title. Bottas and Alonso strike me as the most likely replacements for Rosberg.
