Throughout his long F1 career, Lewis Hamilton has faced several rivalries, but none as fierce and personal as with Nico Rosberg. Rosberg came out on top in 2016—his only championship-winning season. However, that year was incredibly challenging for Rosberg, who, at one point, had to follow team orders that favored Hamilton in a crucial race.
At the Monaco GP 2016, then-Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo led, with Rosberg in P2. The German driver, however, was intentionally letting Ricciardo pull away because he wanted to slow Hamilton down.
Frustrated, Mercedes ordered Rosberg to let Hamilton by. He complied, and when asked recently, about how painful that scenario was, he said, “It’s the most horrible thing. I actually let Lewis pass on team orders, my direct championship rival. That’s horrible, like in the car, it’s just horrible.”
daniel somehow always found himself in the middle of brocedes war 😭 pic.twitter.com/uQfbUQnTaJ
— ফারিনা // Farina (@namedafterflour) September 3, 2024
Rosberg’s afternoon got worse from there. He not only finished P7, but Hamilton won the race after a heartbreaking pit-stop error from Ricciardo took the Aussie’s chances of victory away.
Rosberg brought up this incident to discuss the situation at McLaren, where two top-quality drivers—Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri—are competing for wins together. Rosberg believes this is affecting the team and is using his experience to advise them.
How McLaren can avoid an intra-team rivalry
In Hungary earlier this year, Norris and Piastri found themselves in an awkward situation when a strategy error by McLaren gave the former the lead of the race through no fault of his teammate’s. Norris had to be persuaded for several laps before letting Piastri pass again for the win.
After the race, however, Rosberg publicly asked team principal Andrea Stella to be more assertive with team orders. He spoke with experience and stated that failing to do so, would lead to more unwanted situations, which would spoil McLaren’s races.
Rosberg was right. In Italy last weekend, both drivers were told they were free to fight. But on lap one, when Piastri overtook Norris, the latter lost another place to go down to P3. It compromised the team’s strategy and plans, with Charles Leclerc eventually taking the lead and the win.
CEO Zak Brown admitted that they would need to look into their decision to let drivers fight freely again. Since the team is involved in the constructors’ championship battle, there can be slip-ups.
