“There is this preconception of endless glamour but I also know a very normal
side, of going to the beach and buying a pizza that is no more over-priced
than anywhere else.
“I feel privileged to live in Monte Carlo, because it can be massively
expensive, but I always have my friends and family to call on.”
Chief among his confidants is father Keke, the 1982 world champion who can
often be found in the environs of Monaco harbour with a supply of Gauloises
close to hand. Instrumental in steering a gifted prodigal into the junior
formulas, Keke is still identified by Nico as his most formative influence.
“He helped me when I most needed it,” Rosberg Jnr admits. “His most important
contribution was letting me go. He allowed me, as his son, to find my own
way and make my own mistakes.
“That’s the most difficult thing to do as a parent, to let go, because you
think you want to help your child all the time, to give him everything that
you know all at once. But he has been crucial in giving me direction.”
The wistfulness in the 27-year-old’s voice can be traced to a time when a
photogenic image bred criticisms that his style outweighed his substance,
and when he drew the nickname ‘Britney’ for his striking blond hair.
Rosberg is the first to concede that he has matured, even mellowed, as a
consequence of his rise to prominence. “I have changed, hugely so.
Formula One is the best university in the world. I have always had a desire
and discipline to achieve, but I have developed so much as a person by
learning to work with people, understanding them. It is amazing how much it
has given my life.”
Ever since Lewis
Hamilton, Rosberg’s long-time confrère from their
karting days, joined Mercedes on a £60 million three-year contract,
suspicions have persisted that their relationship would display signs of
strain.
But Rosberg is near-contemptuous of the suggestion he might feel pressure from
his new team-mate. “I had Michael Schumacher, a seven-time world champion,
alongside me for three years,” he replies. “Not much has changed in that
respect.”
The dynamic is complicated by the fact that he and Hamilton even share the
same high-rise block of flats, just off the principality’s Avenue Princesse
Grace. “It’s useful for Lewis,” Rosberg jokes. “He can pop down whenever he
realises he has no food in the fridge.”
Jests aside, Rosberg recognises that perceptions of a hierarchy at Mercedes
remain, given how he was told to hold position behind Hamilton in the
Malaysian Grand Prix despite protesting, “Let me past, I’m so much faster.”
He argues, rather tensely and after a long pause: “That was a unique situation
– a very unexpected one, which we hadn’t planned for.
If you’re implying that there is a No 1 and No 2 driver within the team, that
is absolutely not the case. The same decision would have been taken had it
been the other way around. Nobody wants team orders, but there is more to
it.
We are representing Mercedes on the track, massive amounts of money are
involved, plus hundreds of people back at the factory. Sometimes you have to
limit the risk to bring the cars home.”
Rosberg, hard as it was to tell from his superlative one-lap speed on
Thursday, almost never reached the uplands of F1 at all. A love for tennis
burgeoned as a child and, he recalls, “a choice had to be made” between that
and racing.
“It’s a similar challenge, believe it or not, controlling a tennis racket and
an F1 car – the secret is all in the hand-eye co-ordination.”
Just how talented was he? With his penchant for combining humility and a
slight conceitedness, often in the same sentence, he shrugs. “I was in the
Monaco national team. So, pretty good.”
His surge of success this year, in qualifying if not yet in race consistency,
is one Rosberg seeks desperately to sustain. “I want to keep learning, to
stay open-minded.
There are enough people in this business who are extremely confident already.
I’m very content where I am, racing for the Silver Arrows. You’re aware of
the history behind you very powerfully, especially as a German. I feel very
much at home.”