The newly crowned World Drivers’ Champion, Nico Rosberg, has decided to quit while he’s on top, announcing that he will retire from Formula One. The 31 year old will not be taking part in the 2017 season, leaving an open seat on the team for next season.
The announcement was made during the FIA Prize Giving gala in Vienna on Friday (see bottom of the article). The German has put an end to an 11 year Formula One racing career during which he has competed in 206 Grands Prix. The announcement has caught the racing world, including the team, by surprise.
Rosberg discussed the pain and sacrifice that was required to allow him to achieve his childhood dream of winning the F1 World Championship title:
“Since 25 years in racing, it has been my dream, my ‘one thing’ to become Formula One World Champion. Through the hard work, the pain, the sacrifices, this has been my target. And now I’ve made it. I have climbed my mountain, I am on the peak, so this feels right. My strongest emotion right now is deep gratitude to everybody who supported me to make that dream happen.
This season, I tell you, it was so damn tough. I pushed like crazy in every area after the disappointments of the last two years; they fuelled my motivation to levels I had never experienced before. And of course that had an impact on the ones I love, too – it was a whole family effort of sacrifice, putting everything behind our target. I cannot find enough words to thank my wife Vivian; she has been incredible. She understood that this year was the big one, our opportunity to do it, and created the space for me to get full recovery between every race, looking after our daughter each night, taking over when things got tough and putting our championship first.
When I won the race in Suzuka, from the moment when the destiny of the title was in my own hands, the big pressure started and I began to think about ending my racing career if I became World Champion. On Sunday morning in Abu Dhabi, I knew that it could be my last race and that feeling cleared my head before the start. I wanted to enjoy every part of the experience, knowing it might be the last time… and then the lights went out and I had the most intense 55 laps of my life. I took my decision on Monday evening. After reflecting for a day, the first people I told were Vivian and Georg (Nolte, from Nico’s management team), followed by Toto.
The only thing that makes this decision in any way difficult for me is because I am putting my racing family into a tough situation. But Toto understood. He knew straight away that I was completely convinced and that reassured me. My proudest achievement in racing will always be to have won the world championship with this incredible team of people, the Silver Arrows.
Now, I’m just here to enjoy the moment. There is time to savour the next weeks, to reflect on the season and to enjoy every experience that comes my way. After that, I will turn the next corner in my life and see what it has in store for me…”
Rosberg originally started his Formula One career with Williams, where he spent four seasons. After that he made the move over to the newly formed Mercedes F1 Team, racing alongside the legendary Michael Schumacher. When Schumacher announced his second retirement in 2013, Rosberg found himself paired with Lewis Hamilton. When the hybrid era of Formula One arrived, the Mercedes car quickly became the car to beat. This was when the relationship between Rosberg and Hamilton took a nose-dive, as each was desperately competing to be the number one driver. After watching Hamilton win the World Drivers’ Champion two seasons in a row, Rosberg was finally able to take home his first title in Abu Dhabi. His retirement means that Nico Rosberg will not have the opportunity to attempt to better his father, Keke, who also has a single World Drivers’ Championship title to his name.
Rosberg’s retirement leaves an open seat at Mercedes for 2017, which something that surely any driver would kill for at the moment. This new seat could shuffle around the 2017 driver lineups in the months before the 2017 season begins. “For the team, this is an unexpected situation but also an exciting one,” said Toto Wolff, the head of Mercedes-Benz motorsport. “We are going into a new era of technical regulations and there is a free Mercedes cockpit for the seasons ahead. We will take the necessary time to evaluate our options and then find the right path for our future.”
