"I've been through all that": Nico Rosberg opens up on texting Lando Norris after the 2024 F1 Italian GP

Nico Rosberg texted Lando Norris following the conclusion of the 2024 Italian Grand Prix, where the McLaren driver finished P3 and took a huge dent in his Driver's Championship ambition against Max Verstappen. Rosberg, who comes with ample experience, shared that he connected with the McLaren driver to share his experience in F1.

Norris started the Monza race from the pole position. However, he lost two positions to Oscar Piastri initially and then to Charles Leclerc up next. In the end, the McLaren star finished behind race winner Leclerc and his teammate Piastri, who came home in P2.

Norris' weakness in the first corner of the first lap seemed evident in Monza, something that has been his Achilles heel this year. Unironically, the Briton remained skeptical about his performance throughout the Grand Prix weekend and suffered from a lack of confidence.

Citing this, Rosberg, in the recent Sky Sports F1 podcast, revealed that he texted Lando Norris to share his experience amid such a situation.

"I wrote Lando a DM actually just cuz I thought that my experience could be interesting for him because I've been through all that," the 2016 F1 champion said.

"I wrote him that cuz for him the glass is always half empty rather than half full and the best example is look and he's very authentic you know which is of course very lovely. But you can be authentic and be glass half full rather than half empty."

"And the best example was the qualifying lap. Look Lando puts it on pole and focuses his post qualifying talk on a lot 'yeah I messed up the beginning of my lap, and actually was a scruffy lap and I apologize to the team and so I was down after turn one and two," Rosberg added.

"But he could have just as much said actually most of the lap was perfect, so awesome we're on pole position. Both are the truth, but he decided to focus on his mistakes." (18:02-18:58)

Nico Rosberg indeed comes with experience, as the former German driver spent four extremely competitive years (2013-2016) with Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, where the intra-team rivalry reached the epitome.

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McLaren to aid Lando Norris against Max Verstappen

Lando Norris during the race of the Formula 1 Pirelli Gran Premio d'Italia 2024 in Monza, Italy, on September 1, 2024 (Photo by Alessio Morgese/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

While it's no secret that Lando Norris has a good chance of securing the 2024 Driver's Championship, McLaren is also optimistic about it. As per the latest reports, the team would aid Norris in his race against Max Verstappen.

Speaking about this, team principal Andrea Stella said:

"We have now to acknowledge that not only the constructors’ championship is possible but - with the performance we have at the moment in the car, and some of the struggle we see with Red Bull - even the drivers’ is definitely possible.

"If we can achieve both, we need to put the team and Lando in position to pursue both championships."

Max Verstappen is leading the drivers championship with 303 points, 62 points ahead of Lando Norris, who has 241 points. Given the gap, Norris needs to outperform Verstappen by 7.75 points per race, keeping aside the Sprint races.