has lifted the lid on his time as seven-time Method 1 champion Michael Schumacher’s team-mate, revealing among the methods the previous driver would get a psychological edge over his rivals.
When returned to F1 as a works squad in 2010, a younger Rosberg discovered himself paired with the championship’s most profitable driver on the time.
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Talking on the , Rosberg recounted: “He is a psychological warrior, that man. He lives and breathes destroying his team-mate mentally, however not in a imply approach, in an off-the-cuff gray space, utilizing the gray areas as a each day pressure. He wakes up. It is simply pure to him.
“He would not must push himself to destroy his team-mate naturally, immensely. It is his lifestyle. So, whether or not it is that we arrive on the observe and there is just one parking spot, there are 20 parking spots on the observe.
“Everyone else has to park a kilometre away. So, one for every driver. Now, there are crew bosses additionally. And Michael would park his automobile simply barely throughout into my parking spot. So two wheels simply throughout the white line in a approach that I can not match anymore. Like, actually I’d scratch the automobiles if I’d strive.
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“So it stresses me out, clearly, as a result of I am late for the assembly. You at all times arrive one minute earlier than the engineering assembly. It is probably the most horrible factor to reach a minute late when all people, even the manufacturing unit, 50 individuals on the manufacturing unit, all people’s on-line, and it is, ‘Sorry, we’re simply ready on Nico to reach.’ Horrible. So he parks the automobile throughout.
“So, I am caught as a result of I can not go away it in the midst of the highway, and it is simply all day lengthy. Monaco qualifying, he locks himself in the one bathroom that we had within the storage. There’s just one. And the very last thing you do as a driver is you at all times go to the toilet earlier than getting within the automobile, and he locks himself in taking a look at his watch.
Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG, Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, and Michael Schumacher, Mercedes AMG, within the put up qualifying Press Convention
Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG, Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, and Michael Schumacher, Mercedes AMG, within the put up qualifying Press Convention
“The time is ticking, and he is aware of that it is the most horrible factor, leaping in a race automobile if you’re pressured as a result of you might want to modify your seatbelts. And there are crotch straps on the backside which are excessive threat. You’ll want to take your time to place them very rigorously and properly as a result of the worst that may occur is that if one thing shifts misplaced when you’re out on the racetrack, then there’s nothing you are able to do about it.
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“Each driver has skilled this. It is so painful. And if you’re braking, you slide down into the crotch, and if one thing’s not proper in place, you may have an hour to go, and also you’re out on the racetrack, and you may’t do something about it. So, you do not wish to leap within the automobile pressured. And he is within the rest room. Locked the door.
“I am knocking on the door, and I do not know who’s in there as a result of there is not any one speaking. ‘Come out. Come out. Come out, please. I must go.’ And he is aware of, ‘OK, three minutes to go. Two minutes to go.’ By then, I needed to discover a bucket at the back of the storage to pee, truthfully. So, I am there the place the mechanics are working round me, and I am peeing in a bucket, shaking, pressured. This was all day lengthy. He beloved it.”
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