2016 System 1 champion has admitted that his notorious on-track collisions with have been typically the results of a deliberate, psychological determination to cease yielding and shed his pure tendency to be “too good” on monitor.
The 2016 title battle between the team-mates stays one of the fiercely contested intra-team rivalries within the historical past of the championship.
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Whereas reflecting on the 2016 season on the podcast, Rosberg defined, when requested if he needed to cease being himself: “Oh, completely, as a result of the true Nico Rosberg is approach too good. I needed to push and be more durable typically, despite the fact that it did not come naturally to me.”
The previous driver drew comparisons with McLaren driver Lando Norris’s battles with Purple Bull ace .
“And once more, you’ve got the identical instance with Lando,” Rosberg continued. “Lando, usually, folks will say he is simply too good. In wheel-to-wheel battles, he has all the time misplaced in opposition to Max. Within the final yr, in each wheel-to-wheel battle in opposition to Max, he misplaced out. What Lando must do as soon as is simply maintain his floor, trigger a crash.
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“And that can ship a message to Max. ‘Oh, he is altering, he is changing into extra ferocious. Possibly I have to calm it down a bit subsequent time in opposition to him as a result of in any other case we will crash.’ And also you simply have to try this.”
Going again to his personal 2016 championship title battle, the 40-year-old mentioned his personal crashes with the now-seven-time champion.
World Champion Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG F1 shakes fingers with group mate and race winner Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1
World Champion Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG F1 shakes fingers with group mate and race winner Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1
“We crashed. And that is simply me consciously saying I’ve to be extra agency. I’ve to not yield as I’d. Naturally, I’d yield like I did so typically earlier than that and I needed to push myself arduous.
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“It was a part of my visualisation, the repetitions that I used to be doing in meditation. I used to be working very arduous on that, visualising myself not yielding and being agency in my place. That was a powerful a part of my visualisation and even I used to be meditating with posture.
“You meditate with a posture of energy, and it is all these particulars that add up, after which within the warmth of the second, that preparation helps to carry your floor and never yield and sadly, then in fact it led to fairly a number of crashes.”
Rosberg went on to win the drivers’ championship in 2016 by 5 factors over his team-mate, and retired on the finish of the identical yr.
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