Fight between Rosberg and Hamilton caused Mercedes behavioral problems
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg experienced a challenging season in 2016. Both drivers were employed by Mercedes and jointly fought out which driver could take the world title. According to Rosberg, it caused them to have to make agreements between themselves.
Whereas Rosberg was keen to win his first world title, Hamilton was all too keen to retain his status and win the world championship again. As a result, Mercedes had to deal with two drivers who hardly gave each other any credit and drove against each other during the Barcelona Grand Prix, among other things.
"We made it extremely difficult," Rosberg states in conversation with Express. "It went to the point that we had a code of conduct, a paper, what we were allowed to do in a wheel-to-wheel battle, even penalties with a lot of zeros on them attached to that because there was no other way. It just got too heated and too extreme."
Successors to Rosberg have a hard time
In the end, it was Rosberg who managed to take the world title, after which he announced his retirement from Formula 1. His replacement at the German racing stable at the time was Valtteri Bottas. This calendar year, Mercedes replaced the Finn for George Russell.