In the nervous breakdown that is the current state of Formula One, Nico Rosberg is a reassuring presence even though Lewis Hamilton supporters might not see it quite like that. For a brief time, after the Monaco Grand Prix in May and again after Spa in August, Hamilton fans placed his Mercedes team-mate somewhere between Beelzebub and Lucifer – with a dash of the Red Baron thrown in. And nothing unites people quite like a common enemy.
That level of enmity is difficult to sustain, for in some ways Rosberg, the one man who might prevent Hamilton form winning a deserved second Formula One world championship here on Sunday, is the most impressive driver on the grid. Thanks to the over-generous double points on offer at the Yas Marina circuit, if Hamilton fails to finish the race, fifth would be good enough for the German to take the title.
Rosberg disguises himself as a journeyman but it is a high-class journey he embarks on every race weekend. He is arguably the most diligent driver in F1, working with his race engineer until 11pm every Friday night and approaching circuits with the patient care of a cartographer moving from one difficult terrain to another.
He speaks five languages: German, English, French, Italian and (a little less fluently) Spanish. He reads the business pages and turned down the opportunity to study engineering at Imperial College London to pursue a career in racing. “Everything relates to physics and maths,” Rosberg says. When he joined Williams and had to take their mandatory engineering aptitude test, he scored the highest marks in the team’s history.
Because Rosberg is German and serious, it is tempting to stereotype him and conclude he shares a sense of humour with Arthur Schopenhauer but he smiles easily, his cheeks pulling away from each other like a pair of curtains. On social media (much better than compatriot Sebastian Vettel) he is a consistent teller of teasing jokes.
Unlike Hamilton, Rosberg does not wear his heart on his sleeve. It would be nice if he was less introverted, though one-to-one meetings are often more rewarding than his press conferences.
A change might be on the way. Since his wedding he has talked about driving a vintage Mercedes in the Mille Miglia and taking up wildlife photography in South Africa. The F1 championship might encourage him to show us a more outgoing and rounded personality, even if we just see him doing more of his party piece, which is to juggle three balls while riding a unicycle. The 29-year-old also enjoys tennis, chess and backgammon.
But is the son of the 1982 title winner Keke Rosberg a real champion too? The former driver and now Sky analyst Johnny Herbert said: “I think Nico is a lot better than many people thought. When Michael Schumacher joined Mercedes, people said he would beat Nico but it didn’t happen. Then everyone said Lewis would see him off but that’s not been the case either.
“He has a very good knowledge of his car, works extremely hard in the simulator and is always talking to his mechanics and engineers. He is also a very good driver, even if he may not have that spark of raw talent we see with Lewis. But he doesn’t make mistakes. The only thing we don’t know is can he handle the pressure if things gets tight? But he has given no sign he will crack.”
Herbert said that at Silverstone in July and subsequent grands prix Rosberg has made mistakes. He has cracked, if not dramatically then enough to suggest we often think of him and Hamilton a little too simplistically.
Hamilton is a much more controlled and calculating driver than he once was, while Rosberg has proved he can be the faster of the two, winning 10 poles this season to his team-mate’s seven. In race mode, Hamilton has been the more impressive, with 10 wins to Rosberg’s five but some of Rosberg’s drives – particularly winning the Brazilian Grand Prix earlier this month – were performances of the highest quality.
It was at Interlagos that he climbed out of the sinkhole his championship challenge had tumbled into as Hamilton won five races in a row following the incident at Spa, where Rosberg was accused of deliberately crashing into his team-mate and had his wrists slapped by the Mercedes management.
Rosberg was more guilty at Monaco, where he appeared to deliberately get in the way of Hamilton as the British driver attempted to claim pole.
What can be said with some certainty is that the pictures of the pair, in their karting youth, playing table tennis and football and computer games, with Hamilton mischievously persuading the richer Rosberg to buy him ice creams, is now the stuff of sepia-toned memory.
