Rosberg’s criticisms have no bearing on my life – Hamilton
Briton suggests his old rival is envious of him Former team-mate cites champion’s age and pace
Lewis Hamilton has responded witheringly to Nico Rosberg’s latest barbs from the sidelines, dismissing the opinions of his former Mercedes team-mate as an irrelevance.
Rosberg, the 2016 world champion, had used his video blog to offer five reasons why he thought Max Verstappen was the stand-out driver of the season, citing Hamilton’s age and fractional loss of qualifying pace as key factors. But his old nemesis, having denied the Dutchman victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday after an exhilarating pursuit, gave such arguments short shrift.
“Honestly, I’ve never seen the blog,” he said. “It has no bearing on anything I do in my life. I don’t care. All you have to do is look at the tally of my results over the years. They speak for themselves. There will be people who haven’t had the success that I’ve had and who might want to talk it down.”
Rosberg, with 23 race wins to Hamilton’s 81, is one such person. The relationship between the pair remains as icy as it was on that day in Austin in 2015 when Hamilton, celebrating his third world championship, provocatively tossed the cap for the second-placed driver at Rosberg – only for the German to hurl it straight back.
Now that the retired Rosberg has moved into punditry, his criticisms of Hamilton have become increasingly pointed. When Hamilton disclosed that he had a virus ahead of the recent German Grand Prix, where he finished only ninth, Rosberg scoffed: “I think the man flu was just part of the Lewis Hamilton show. He likes to make it look more difficult than it is.”
But Hamilton, now 62 points clear of Valtteri Bottas, referred to a self-help book entitled The Four Agreements, by Mexican spiritualist Don Miguel Ruiz, as his inspiration for deflecting such broadsides. “There’s an element in there that says, ‘Don’t take anything personally’,” he said. “So, when people say something about you, it’s not actually how they’re feeling about you, it’s how they’re feeling about themselves.”
While aided by Mercedes’ innovative two-stop strategy, Hamilton was masterful in judging his chase of Verstappen, heading off into F1’s summer break having won eight of 12 grands prix in 2019. In words that should chill the blood of his nearest rivals, he described how he could make refinements in time for the next race at Spa in four weeks’ time.
“I feel really fit,” Hamilton said. “I wouldn’t say I’m the fittest I’ve been, because I’ve been coming away from this sickness – and, believe me, it wasn’t man flu. It was something that really wiped me out. With this break I have, I’m really focused on recovery. I’ve told my guys, ‘I want everyone to send me an email, be completely straight with me if there are things you think I can improve on’. I want the