So did he deserve it?
It’s a silly question of course, not least because this is the Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship. Like the league title in football, it’s based on an accumulation over an extended period. It requires consistency and tenacity. It’s near impossible just to luck into.
That’s why going through a list of former F1 champions (just like with football’s league champions) it’s hard to pinpoint a single one as being to any great extent undeserving. But with Nico Rosberg we could have seen the silly question coming. Has any F1 driver defied allocation quite like him? Even with achievements piling up, feelings of doubt and equivocation seem to stalk him like merciless ghosts.
Arguments about where a driver fits in the scheme of things are common of course, but they tend to be related to poignancy. What would such-and-such have done in a good car? Had that opportunity arose? Had they been in the right place at the right time?
These don’t apply to Nico of course. For the last three seasons he has had access to a machine that is the clear class of the field; for the last four had a team mate viewed as the modern sport’s most instinctively quickest as well as statistically (in race wins at least) the most successful. Normally in such an intense glare everything about him should have been revealed pitilessly. Not with Nico.
For the last three seasons he has had access to a machine that is the clear class of the field; for the last four had a team mate viewed as the modern sport’s most instinctively quickest. In such an intense glare everything about him should have been revealed pitilessly. Not with Nico.
What hasn’t helped is the persistent claim that he’s been lucky this year. And of course on a broad level those making such a claim have a point, inasmuch that even analyses generous to Nico that seek to equalise this season’s mechanical misfortune of him and his title rival team mate Lewis Hamilton do more than enough to tilt the title Lewis’s way. His approach in late rounds rather as a points-gathering accountant likely didn’t help the image either.
Still, Lewis’s oft-repeated clam that Rosberg has had 100% reliability this year, while true in terms of making it to the end of races, also is a little disingenuous. Nico got a five-place grid drop in Austria due to his suspension breaking in practice which in turn required him to change his accident-damaged gearbox. A late technical problem in Silverstone indirectly cost him three points. In Germany and Malaysia he got penalties that struck most observers as harsh. In the former when serving said his penalty the Merc team’s stopwatch broke… Not nearly as much bad luck as Lewis, granted. But Nico’s not been without bad luck.
And, though we may miss as much in the age of mass reliability, it’s the game. Even a 21 race F1 season is not close to long enough for such random chance to necessarily even out perfectly. Lewis could reflect on the experience of his hero Ayrton Senna in 1989, when thanks to a series of mechanical failures and accidents (and a notorious disqualification) he finished but seven times in the points from 16 rounds. Six wins and a second place. And it added up but to runners’ up spot in the table.
And even so is it really credible? Nico’s won no fewer than 23 Grands Prix, and 22 of them have been as Hamilton’s team mate. This year alone he’s won nine – and only Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Hamilton have ever won more in a campaign. The rarity should tell us something.
Whatever else we can say about Lewis, when all is right with him his pace will take your breath away. But almost never has Rosberg been humiliated by Lewis on the stopwatch.
While whatever else we can say about Lewis, as Jenson Button has reminisced from his own time as his team mate Hamilton’s pace when all is right with him will take your breath away. But almost never has Rosberg been humiliated by Lewis on the stopwatch. Even when he has trailed it has tended to have been not by much. Rarely has it amounted to tenths. To do that he has to be a seriously good racing driver.
The seasonal qualifying match-ups betray little to tell too. In 2014 Rosberg led indeed by 12 to 7; in 2015 Hamilton struck back by the same score. This year it reads Lewis 12, Nico 9. Nico’s run too of getting into the top two of qualifying every time now goes back some 26 rounds. You wonder what he’s got to do to convince the doubters.
On the most common criticism, as Martin Brundle noted after Nico’s Singapore triumph, “yes he wins when he’s at the front, but he keeps getting at the front.”
“He’s got it aced” Brundle continued, “his qualifying is good, he gets off the line, his race craft seems fine.”
There indeed seems little wrong with how he goes about his business. It’s added up to titles for as long as they have existed, and I’m not aware of too many criticising the likes of Alberto Ascari, Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna for prevailing mainly in the same way. I’ve even heard it argued that Jimmy, just as is said of Nico, used to lose something when fighting in the field. More latterly Nico’s in any case shown perhaps a new resolve here, with fighting drives in the pack in Malaysia and Germany.
Yes he wins when he’s at the front, but he keeps getting at the front – Martin Brundle
And rather than Nico’s title being one of fortune we instead should be talking of one of fortitude. We thought in 2014 that would be his one chance at the championship, a la Mark Webber four years previous. Last year when he threw is cap at Lewis in the Austin podium ante room most of us thought he was done. He’s likely known all about Lewis’s raw talent since his teenage years. Many of us would have allowed it all to impact our resolve, even by decimal points, with implications for our performances. Yet Nico keeps coming back undiminished. Indeed after Austin he immediately went on a run of seven straight victories, that went a long way to set up his title just won.
“Perhaps the strongest case for why a Rosberg is a good champion for Formula One is that it would represent a triumph of resilience” said Daniel Johnson to this end a few weeks ago.
But with Nico the doubt is nothing new. Somehow throughout his time in F1, and even before, there’s always been a determination among some onlookers to suggest his achievements weren’t all that.
And whether by accident or reflecting common will, his motorsport notches have done little to alleviate the confusion. “I’ve never particularly been convinced by Nico Rosberg”, said journalist Simon Arron before the start of the 2013 season, when Nico and Lewis first were paired up. “He went well in Formula BMW, fine, but [in] fragmented junior categories it’s very hard to draw conclusions. In Formula 3 he didn’t do that well – he was an occasional race winner, front-runner, but he wasn’t anything special. GP2 – ART had a very clear performance advantage. In F1, he was four tenths slower than Mark Webber in 2006, and the Mercedes guys say that from mid-2011 onwards Schumacher was their best race bet.”
Possibly for some it was related to a privileged and ‘pretty boy’ image – brought up in Monaco with a world champion father etc etc – encapsulated by his former ‘Britney’ moniker. This was likely most graphically outlined by Will Buxton, when reminiscing about his time as the GP2 press officer.
Perhaps the strongest case for why a Rosberg is a good champion for Formula One is that it would represent a triumph of resilience – Daniel Johnson
“I can’t recall the first time I met Nico Rosberg” Buxton said. “All I remember is that I despised him, everything he was and all he represented: the cock-sure, entitled, bolshy son of a world champion. No grace, no humility. Wafting in, a blur of blonde hair and arrogance. A Formula BMW champion yes, but only a few F3 wins and just three years in single seaters gave what I held to be little foundation for such seeming conceit. I disliked him intensely.”
He’s since changed his view on Nico, by the way. In case any of you were minded to harangue him.
Nico even entered F1 with a bang. In his debut race he recovered brilliantly from damaged nose on the first lap to get points for seventh place, in so doing becoming the sport’s youngest to bag a fastest lap (a record that stood until Max Verstappen undercut it in Brazil’s rain). In his second Grand Prix he qualified third. But after those, little but obfuscation. His team mate Webber got a firm upper hand for the rest of that year. In subsequent seasons Nico’s was the lead Williams by a way but his team mates – Alex Wurz and Kazuki Nakajima – hardly were top drawer they said. Even his high points were thought to be not what they seemed – for example his stunning run in Singapore in 2008 was interpreted as evidence that Nico the rest of the time wasn’t getting the most out of his machine. Word emerged from Grove that he was lazy.
The confusion lingered. As he departed Williams at the end of 2009 Autocourse summed it up. “Consistency has been his stock-in-trade, precision even. But does he lack the ultimate racer’s edge, which makes the difference between a genuine front-runner and a member of the supporting cast?
“The 2009 season suggested that there was probably more to come from Rosberg, but precisely how much remains open to debate.”
Perhaps it reflects Nico’s sort. As was outlined in Autosport’s recent analysis of the top current F1 drivers’ styles, Nico “is meticulous in his approach, like a scientist conducting an experiment – research, hypotheses, test, conclusion, and begin again.”
His stock did rise a little with his switch to Mercedes for 2010, as he delivered again consistently and far ahead of his team mate – but this time it was Michael Schumacher, no less. But even so the fog wasn’t allowed to clear, as plenty surmised that the returning seven-time champion wasn’t that which had departed three years earlier. It didn’t help that over their three campaigns together Michael seemed to get progressively nearer to him.
And you’d think as intimated that being paired alongside a clear yardstick like Hamilton in 2013, then a year later in a front-running car, would finally remove whatever was cloaking our sense of Nico’s potential. But no. Somehow three seasons and several poles and race wins later the arguments rage still with little relent.
Perhaps it reflects Nico’s sort. As was outlined in Autosport’s recent analysis of the top current F1 drivers’ styles, Nico “is meticulous in his approach, like a scientist conducting an experiment – research, hypotheses, test, conclusion, and begin again.” It’s all very laudable in its own way but perhaps it has a flip side that in this gladiatorial activity it’s contributed to a view among some that he’s some kind of imposter – only there as he used ‘alternative’ means to get there.
Nico’s methodological approach was reflected in his words prior to the Abu Dhabi weekend. “Statistics like that are not going to make me faster this weekend” he said of the title permutations.
“I am where I am because of a certain approach that I’ve take through the season, and that’s been just keep it simple, race-by-race…”
This is a sport that oddly doesn’t reward its triers in historical discourse, instead prefers to talk of the naturally gifted 'artists'. One thinks of Graham Hill, a twice world champion in a time of tough contemporaries, and he kept the lauded Clark more than honest both as a rival from another squad and as a team mate. Yet his name rarely is mentioned in debates of the sport’s finest. His son Damon is under-rated too, for similar reasons. Appropriately them being the sport’s only father-son champion combination before the Rosbergs joined them.
Allied to this driver coach Rob Wilson noted that “Rosberg is very clever, and a hugely hard worker at getting the best from himself.” Perhaps that’s part of it too, that we don’t see – and perhaps don’t readily appreciate – this side of the game. The sort of thing that led to Nigel Mansell contemptuously dismissing his then-team mate Alain Prost as a “chauffeur”, who tried to get the car to do the work. But as Prost was absolutely correct to retort, that’s part of the object of the exercise.
Perhaps it’s as simple as identity. Helpful as always, Bernie waded in recently to declare that a Nico title “wouldn’t necessarily help the sport because there is nothing to write about him”.
As the Autosport analysis also notes, the approach likely explains too why when unforeseen variables are thrown in, such as rain (see Monaco and Brazil this year) or having other cars nearby (see Canada and Lewis’s late attack in Austria) Nico can be less impressive. “He is a driving jigsaw” the article went on, “studiously put together piece by piece. Rosberg is devastatingly effective when all those pieces are in the right place”, as indeed we’ve witnessed this year with crushing performances in Singapore and Japan, that bear comparison with just about any from anyone.
“But” noted Autosport, “[he] perhaps lacks the creative flair of a fresh painting on a blank canvas. Witness his occasional ham-fisted overtaking attempts. He is a driver of the established sciences, not the black arts.”
Perhaps it’s as simple as identity. Take any one of Nico’s contemporaries among the front-runners and they can be encapsulated in a few words, almost like you were a Hollywood director typecasting. Nico? It’s not nearly so easy. Us on the outside have little sense of knowing him. Or who he is.
This was a point picked up by Buxton a couple of years ago, speaking of Spa 2014 and all that. “I argued at the time that Rosberg needed to embrace one side or the other. He needed to be a hero or a villain, because if he was neither, he risked becoming nothing. And so it emerged after the race that he had told Hamilton he had allowed the impact to happen. A step towards becoming that villain? Perhaps, but it wasn’t enough. And that’s the big sadness of his season…his inability to pick a side and his attempts at being all things to all people has led to him being left wide open to attack from all sides.”
Helpful as always too, Bernie waded in recently to declare that a Nico title “wouldn’t necessarily help the sport because there is nothing to write about him”.
Whatever is the case, as outlined there has seemed a determination to think the worst. At Williams it was said his team mates weren’t top drawer. When trouncing the returning Schumi it was said the great man wasn’t nearly what he once was. Whenever he beat Hamilton it tended to be attributed to Lewis’s own self-compromising tendencies. But there is another interpretation. A glaring one indeed. But we missed it. That it perhaps owed plenty to Nico.
There has seemed a determination to think the worst. At Williams it was said his team mates weren’t top drawer. When trouncing the returning Schumi it was said the great man wasn’t nearly what he once was. Whenever he beat Hamilton it tended to be attributed to Lewis’s own self-compromising tendencies. But there is another interpretation. That it perhaps owed plenty to Nico.
As Buxton concluded in 2014, “Lest we forget, this is the only man who, over the course of a full Formula 1 season, finished ahead of Michael Schumacher as a team mate. As if to reinforce the point, Rosberg achieved this giant toppling feat not once, but thrice.
“…we know he has the pace, we know he has the temperament to win races, and we know that on occasion he can embrace his inner bastard and drive with the ruthlessness that sets world champions apart.”
Perhaps the arguments will continue nevertheless. But there is one part of his allocation that cannot be disputed. That of Nico Rosberg as F1 World Champion. And just as Clint Eastwood noted in the perhaps appropriately-titled Unforgiven, “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it”.
