QUITTING WHILE HE’S AHEAD
Formula 1 champ Nico Rosberg has stunned fans by retiring
HE WAS on top of the world. It had taken him 10 gruelling years but finally Nico Rosberg had done it. He’d ended the season at number one on the log which meant the Driver’s Championship trophy was his. But then he did the unthinkable: just five days after becoming Formula One’s new champion he stunned fans by retiring.
“I’ve climbed my mountain; I’m on the peak, so this feels right,” the German said in a candid posting on Facebook.
Rosberg (31) admitted he first started toying with the idea of retirement when he won the Japanese Grand Prix in early October.
Even though he ended his final race in Abu Dhabi late last month in second place – losing to his Mercedes-Benz teammate Lewis Hamilton (also 31) – he’d secured enough points to take the title, having won nine of this season’s 21 Grands Prix.
And once he’d tasted ultimate victory, he felt he had nothing left to prove. With his shock announcement Rosberg has become the first reigning F1 champion to retire since Alain Prost did so in 1993. But not everyone approves of his deci- sion. Three-time world champion Niki Lauda, who is nonexecutive chairman at Mercedes, is annoyed Rosberg failed to give the team prior warning.
“We all gave him the opportunity to become world champion in a fantastic car and then he tells us he wants to retire,” Lauda (67) says. “This has created a huge hole in this great working team. And we’re left looking dumb.”
ROSBERG says the previous two seasons – which saw him ending in second place to Hamilton – put his family under immense strain. In 2014 he tied the knot with his longtime girlfriend, Vivian Sibold. After they welcomed a daughter, Alaïa, last year his priorities shifted.
“My next step is being a dad and a husband,” he says.
He’s already given up so much to the sport – not just during the decade he LEFT and BELOW: Nico Rosberg in Abu Dhabi after winning his first F1 world title. BOTTOM LEFT: His wife, Vivian Sibold, joined in the celebrations.
Sspent driving for Williams and Mercedes but also throughout his childhood when his father was an F1 fanatic. His mother, Sina, gave birth to him in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1985 – just four days after his dad, Keke Rosberg, a Finn, won the Detroit Grand Prix racing in a WilliamsHonda. Three years earlier Keke had taken the world title, and when his son won it 34 years later they became only the second father-and-son championship-winning duo – after Graham and Damon Hill.
Raised mainly in Monaco, Rosberg Jnr started taking part in competitive karting from age six. In 2006 he was snapped up by Williams. He moved to Mercedes in 2009 and when Hamilton joined four years later, it paved the way for a rivalry that often saw Rosberg coming off second best. Critics reckon that having finally won the world championship, he decided to quit while he was on top.
He’s now reportedly considering a move into driver management. But is there any chance he might miss the adrenaline rush of the circuit and make a comeback?
“No, definitely not,” Rosberg says. “End of story. Done.”