Nico Rosberg has revealed that Mercedes boss Toto Wolff asked both him and Lewis Hamilton to equally cover the cost of any crash they had with each other following their accident at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix. The German driver shared that it cost him a massive $360,000 in one go for his crash with his teammate.
While appearing on the High Performance podcast recently, Rosberg was asked about how Wolff and Mercedes dealt with both drivers, especially following their high-profile crash in Barcelona. The 2016 F1 world champion revealed that the team even had internal discussions about suspending or terminating the contracts of both drivers at the time, which he only found out about later.
But immediately after the crash in 2016, Rosberg shared that Toto Wolff simply made him and Lewis Hamilton sign a contract, underlining that they would have to pay for whatever damage was caused to the cars following their crashes, irrespective of whose fault it was. He then shared that he had to pay $360,000 for his crash with Hamilton, which was 50% of the full amount.
“What Toto did was he put a contract on the table that we had to sign. And it was 50-50 of the damage, I had to pay myself, and it didn’t matter whose fault it was. So even if it was 90% Lewis’s fault, I had to pay 50% of the actual damage we caused.”
“So, one of the crashes I had to pay $360,000. So that definitely calmed us down. That was expensive. That was not really a fun exercise.”
Rosberg also added that the Mercedes team could have done a better job of determining whose fault each of their crashes was. But he admitted that the squad did eventually start doing so, analysing the drivers’ on-track battles down to the minutest of details.
Nico Rosberg shares he had “no relationship” with Lewis Hamilton amid intra-team battle at Mercedes
Speaking on the aforementioned podcast, Nico Rosberg shared that he had “no relationship” with Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes as things turned bitter between the two rivals. He added that the pair were engaged in all-out war while battling for the world championship and did not even speak to each other during this period.
When asked about his relationship with Hamilton at Mercedes, Rosberg said:
“No, there was no relationship. It’s proper war, it’s like war. It was like, ‘don’t talk about it, don’t talk, war.'”
When asked how they went from being best friends to not even talking anymore, he added:
“Yes, but when you fight for a world championship, you will always compromise the friendship for getting the world championship, unfortunately. It’s such a big dream.”
Rosberg then clarified that he and Lewis Hamilton were not best friends during that time. He explained that the pair had been best friends as kids but only shared an amicable relationship by the time they reached F1 after drifting apart over the years, before their relationship completely broke down as the rivalry began to take shape.
He also added that both drivers needed to be aggressive on track and could not be best friends while fighting for the world championship.
