'Perez should not focus on becoming World Champ'
- Toby McLuskie
Former world champion Nico Rosberg has given Sergio Perez advice on how to deal with a world-class teammate. In a podcast with Sky Sports, Rosberg was asked to shine his light on the situation between Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen. In doing so, the German also looks back at his experiences as Lewis Hamilton's teammate at Mercedes.
Nico Rosberg mainly advises the Mexican to keep social media use to a minimum. "First of all I would recommend to Sergio to really switch off all the media and everything, not look at social media because he’s going to be seeing so many memes going against him, comments going against him, journalists giving questions that are going against him you know, so you really need to separate yourself from that. I switched off from my entire social media, email, news world and completely for the last six years when I was fighting for the championship" Rosberg says he did this himself in his six years with the Mercedes team. However, he also knows that at the press moments at the circuits, there are always journalists ready with tough questions for Perez. "It’s so hard because it keeps on hitting you in your head and that’s one of the hardest parts of the weekend for Sergio at the moment to deal with."
In addition, Rosberg thinks it would be better for Perez to get the World Cup dream out of his head. The 2016 world champion sees Perez tanking a lot of confidence over the winter months, but he thinks a different approach could work better for the Mexican. "It’s about switching off and focusing, also in the state of mind. He’s always saying I want to be champion in the winter and it’s time, he’s doing it anyways, just forget about that, race weekend by race weekend, come to the race and session by session do a fantastic job, prepare for it as best you can, risk manage out there and just do a fantastic job and rebuild like that."