F1 king Rosberg one and done at 31
Retirement bombshell follows intense race to ‘childhood dream’
Just five days after he fulfilled his childhood dream of winning the Formula One championship, Nico Rosberg unexpectedly announced Friday that he was retiring from racing.
It was the first time that a reigning champion decided to leave the series since 1993, when Alain Prost said he was quitting after winning his fourth drivers’ title.
The 31-year-old German said he made his decision Monday night, after the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday, in which he finished second to his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, but won the overall championship by five points. He said he told his Mercedes team of his decision on Tuesday.
“Since 25 years in racing, it has been my dream, my ‘one thing’ to become Formula One world champion,” Rosberg said in a team statement. “Through the hard work, the pain, the sacrifices, this has been my target. And now I’ve made it. I have climbed my mountain, I am on the peak, so this feels right.”
There has been plenty of debate over whether Rosberg, who won nine races this season, was a more deserving champion than Hamilton, with 10.
There is a parallel to Prost’s retirement, at a time when his former teammate Ayrton Senna was considered the greatest driver despite Prost having won four titles, compared with three for Senna. Prost had tired of being unfavourably compared with Senna and also knew that his Williams team was keen to hire Senna the following year.
Senna, like Hamilton, had a crowdpleasing side to him that gave off an air of natural talent, compared with Prost’s studied approach, for which he was nicknamed the Professor, not unlike Rosberg’s demeanour.
Rosberg, the son of a former Formula One world champion, Keke, who won the title in 1982, grew up in Monaco and was considered the sheltered rich kid — he decided to forgo studying engineering in college in London in order to go into racing — while Hamilton grew up in an underprivileged working-class family in England. Hamilton himself emphasized their differences in 2014 by saying his background had made him hungrier for victory than Rosberg had ever been.
In 2015, Hamilton not only won the title with three races remaining, but did so thanks to an error by Rosberg, who let Hamilton pass him and win the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, and the title.
“That was a big turning point,” Rosberg said Sunday. “Austin was a horrible experience for me.”
He went on to win the final three races of last season and then the first four races of this season, proving that a new, more determined and focused Rosberg had arrived.
But the emotional cost of a full season of complete concentration against a teammate whom he called “the benchmark” of racing drivers was clearly a price he did not want to continue paying for victory.
“This season, I tell you, it was so damn tough,” he said Friday.
He spoke this season of how the birth of his daughter in August 2015 had made him stronger. But family responsibility is likely also a reason for his retirement decision.
“I cannot find enough words to thank my wife, Vivian; she has been incredible,” he said in his statement. “She understood that this year was the big one, our opportunity to do it, and created the space for me to get full recovery between every race, looking after our daughter each night, taking over when things got tough.”
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff applauded Rosberg’s decision.
“This is a brave decision by Nico and testament to the strength of his character,” Wolff said. “He has chosen to leave at the pinnacle of his career, as world champion, having achieved his childhood dream. The clarity of his judgment meant I accepted his decision straight away when he told me.”