Go
on to YouTube and you will see a new side to Rosberg; videos of him
walking on wire in Ibiza, pounding the streets of Monaco with his trainer
Daniel Schlosser, playing memory games while doing press-ups, multi-tasking.
In the final moments before practice in Korea, there was more evidence of
Rosberg’s innovative approach to race preparation: keepy-uppy with Schlosser
on the first floor of the team paddock home.
Best of five sets. Last week it was head tennis.
“I always try to do things my own way,” he explains as the rain beats down
over the marshy swampland outside the window. “A little bit differently from
other drivers. Just approach it in the best way I feel to approach it. This
keeps me alert. In the end it is just a lot of determination and discipline
to do a very good job.”
Such innovation may be as effective as a chocolate teapot in getting Rosberg
to the summit of Formula One; maybe it will one day make him unbeatable.
The point is it shows a willingness to experiment; a refusal to rest on his
laurels despite his reputation as probably best driver currently racing
never to have won a grand prix.
“I’m very interested in the mental side,” Rosberg says. “I have read a bit
about it. It’s an area, for sure, where not only in sport but also in life
you can learn a lot about yourself.
“I feel I have matured a lot as a person. You come into this sport so young
and you go straight to the pinnacle of such a big company.
“You have to learn to work together with other people. You have to learn to be
patient.”
For the moment, Rosberg has no choice but to be patient. He has had to watch
as Vettel, two years his junior, has entered the sport and started
re-writing the record books.
Yet five years ago, if you had had to pick a German to fill Michael
Schumacher’s size 10s, Rosberg was your man. Good pedigree, good look.
Having won the inaugural series of GP2 in 2005 (Lewis Hamilton won it the
following year), Rosberg signed for Williams.
In his Engineering Aptitude Test, which all new Williams drivers take, he
achieved the highest score in the team’s history. Although perhaps that is
not so surprising for a driver who can speak five languages fluently
(German, French, English, Italian and Spanish) and was offered a place to
read Aeronautical Engineering at Imperial College, London.
Since then it has just not quite come off. Even the move to Mercedes has not
made it happen for him; the Brackley-based team still in the process of
building.
But if his long wait for that first win – it currently stands at 104 races –
is getting him down you would never know it.
“I am a patient person,” he says. “I don’t get frustrated. Our sport in the
end is very unique; you depend so much on the technology that you have.
“For the majority of people out there it is difficult to understand that. They
just see someone winning and think he must be the best driver but often that
is not the case.” Does he take inspiration from the likes of Jenson Button,
who had to wait 113 races before his first win? “I don’t really think about
that,” he admits.
It might be easy to mistake Rosberg’s placid nature for a lack of ambition but
his attitude to training and race preparation suggests otherwise.
Last summer, for instance, he demolished Button’s London Triathlon time (which
was itself very impressive), setting 2hrs 7mins 23secs in his first
Olympic-distance event at Kitzbuehel, Austria.
“It makes me laugh when people say you don’t need to be fit to drive a Formula
One car,” he says. “Believe me you are working at your body’s limits,
particularly in some of the hotter countries we visit.
“In those races it is like torture. You still need to be super-focused at the
end of the race and that is when the fitter drivers are at an advantage over
the less fit.” His team principal Ross Brawn has been won over. “I have to
be honest, when Nico first arrived from Williams there were times when he
was not fit enough,” he says. “I can’t criticise him at all on that score
now.
He goes above and beyond.” Brawn is more concerned about trying to hang on to
him. Such has been the way Rosberg has handled seven-time world champion
Schumacher in their two seasons together — although it has been closer this
year with Schumacher far more consistent — both Ferrari and Red Bull are
believed to be sniffing around for 2013 when they are likely to have spare
seats.
Rosberg admits such attention is flattering but says he is sure it will happen
for him at Mercedes.
“You can see it in everything we are doing,” he says. “Mercedes are in the
background and they are pushing flat out. We are signing new engineering
talent. Whatever it takes. And we have Ross leading it all and he has been
there and done it before.”
Would it be more satisfying to do it at a German team? “Definitely.That is one
of the great positions I am in. I can lead — or help to lead — this team to
wins and championships.
“And as a German to drive for the Silver Arrows is very, very special.
“The other thing that is special is I know that this team is betting on me;
counting on me to deliver once I have the car to do so. And I’m very
confident that I will be able to. I just have to be patient.
“Michael, of course, isn’t getting any younger. So theoretically it is all set
up perfectly for me here.” The perception remains that Rosberg is a
potential serial winner. If Mercedes can get it right, who knows, maybe he
could even win next year’s championship. Unlikely, certainly, but it
happened that way for Button.
Surely, though, it can only be a matter of time before he wins his first race.
And when it does, he has just the party trick.