Rosberg slays his demons
Emulates father with Abu Dhabi title victory
NICO Rosberg won his maiden Formula One world title by securing second place behind his Mercedes arch-rival Lewis Hamilton in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix yesterday.
Rosberg started the 21st and final 2016 race 12 points clear of Hamilton and, despite the British reigning champion doing everything he could, Rosberg took second to clinch his first championship by five points.
He emulates his father, Keke, who won the title back in 1982.
Before Rosberg’s triumph Hamilton ignored team orders to speed up as he toyed with the pace, slowing it down in a last-ditch bid to try to allow third-placed Sebastian Vettel and fourthplaced Max Verstappen to overtake Rosberg.
After the race, Rosberg returned to applause and cheers from the pits, and lifted F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone up in the air in a massive bear hug. In contrast there was barely any contact between Rosberg and deposed champion Hamilton before the presentation.
Rosberg’s father famously won only one race in his 1982 title triumph and had a career total of five, but Rosberg swept to the title with nine wins this year.
Yesterday’s winning of the title was emphatic proof that, despite all of Hamilton’s reliability problems, Rosberg clinched the title on merit – through dogged pursuit and a raw talent for speed.
Despite losing to Hamilton in the final race of the season yesterday, his overall triumph against Hamilton reflected his character – his refusal to concede, a relentless competitiveness and a cerebral attention to detail.
The title also enabled Rosberg to exorcise the demons that appeared to inhabit his intense competition with Hamilton, a relationship which dates back to teenage karting days as teammates, room-mates and rivals, which has exploded with collisions in the past four years.
In many ways, Rosberg’s success – and his identity as a champion – has been defined by his relationship, and differences, with Hamilton.
Born to a Finnish father and German mother Sina in Wiesbaden, Germany, on June 27 1985, Rosberg has raced for both Finland, briefly in his early career, and Germany. Yet, if anything, he is Monegasque and cosmopolitan. He is a speaker of five languages with dual nationality from his parents, yet he does not speak Finnish thanks to his father’s decision to bring him up without it.
And, far from having an easy life thanks to inherited wealth and privilege, he has, like Hamilton, had a sense that he has much to prove.
While Hamilton remains single and has a playboy image, Rosberg in 2014 married his childhood sweetheart Vivian Sibold, with whom he has a daughter, Alaia, born in August last year. — AFP