Nico Rosberg has lifted the lid on his time as seven-time Method 1 champion Michael Schumacher’s team-mate, revealing a few of the methods the previous Ferrari driver would get a psychological edge over his rivals.
When Mercedes 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.
Talking on the Excessive Efficiency podcast, 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 every day power. 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.
“All people else has to park a kilometre away. So, one for every driver. Now, there are workforce bosses additionally. And Michael would park his automotive simply barely throughout into my parking spot. So two wheels simply throughout the white line in a approach that I can’t match anymore. Like, actually I’d scratch the automobiles if I’d attempt.
“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 everyone, even the manufacturing unit, 50 individuals on the manufacturing unit, everyone’s on-line, and it is, ‘Sorry, we’re simply ready on Nico to reach.’ Horrible. So he parks the automotive throughout.
“So, I am caught as a result of I can’t depart it in the midst of the highway, and it is simply all day lengthy. Monaco qualifying, he locks himself in the one rest room 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 automotive, 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 submit qualifying Press Convention
Picture by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Photos
“The time is ticking, and he is aware of that it is the most horrible factor, leaping in a race automotive whenever you’re harassed as a result of you might want to modify your seatbelts. And there are crotch straps on the backside which are excessive danger. That you must 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.
“Each driver has skilled this. It is so painful. And whenever you’re braking, you slide down into the crotch, and if one thing’s not proper in place, you might 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 need to bounce within the automotive harassed. And he is within the toilet. Locked the door.Â
“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 behind the storage to pee, actually. So, I am there the place the mechanics are working round me, and I am peeing in a bucket, shaking, harassed. This was all day lengthy. He cherished it.”
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