Nico will improve in F1, says Keke

NICO ROSBERG will only get better next season now he has finally won a Formula One title, according to his father and former world champion, Keke.

“I don’t know if the dynamic changes, but a happy man performs better than an unhappy man,” the Finn told reporters after the Mercedes driver clinched the championship in Abu Dhabi.

“He is going to raise the game a little bit next year like everybody does when they win the championship. Jenson (Button) did it. I did it. And that probably will happen. It goes with the game.”

Rosberg senior, who won just one race in his 1982 championship year, took the rest of his five victories in later seasons, and never again challenged for the title.

Button, the 2009 champion with Brawn, went on to take eight of his 15 career victories with McLaren and beat Rosberg’s current teammate and triple champion Lewis Hamilton in the standings in 2011.

Jackie Stewart, champion in 1969, 1971 and 1973, suspected Rosberg might have a harder time even if a weight had lifted.

“He’s done the same as his daddy, that’s a lovely achievement,” he told Reuters. “To win it back-to-back is never too easy.

“He’ll relax a little bit. When you haven’t won the championship at all, you’re pretty uptight sometimes... emotions have an enormous amount to do with it.”

Keke said he had never doubted his son’s ability to get the job done. “There are three things... You have to win your first race, you have to win Monaco, and you have to win the championship.”