"I felt incredible pain" - Nico Rosberg on Lewis Hamilton's F1 title defeat to Max Verstappen

Former world champion Nico Rosberg has commented on Lewis Hamilton's controversial loss to Max Verstappen in Abu Dhabi. The German claims he felt "incredible pain" when his former teammate lost out to Verstappen on the final lap of the season finale earlier this month.

Nico Rosberg knows a thing or two about battling Lewis Hamilton. The German, as the Briton's Mercedes teammate, eventually bested him to take the 2016 drivers' title. Rosberg is no longer affiliated with the Mercedes F1 team but claims he still felt pain when Hamilton lost to Verstappen under strange safety car regulations. He told the Cross Country Rally YouTube channel:

“I felt a pain, an incredible pain. I don’t have to do anything with Mercedes now, but of course, it is my family from before, and an incredible pain. They were 99% sure that they would win the World Championship until there were three laps to go. After losing it, and losing it in a fight like that, in which there was nothing I could do because the tires had 50 laps, an incredible pain. It is a pity that the FIA ended up with a somewhat strange decision.”

Nico Rosberg praised the intense championship battle between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, claiming it was "phenomenal." He said:

“It was a lot of fun watching it on television, the fight between Hamilton and Verstappen was phenomenal. They are the two best drivers in many years. Verstappen is also going to be champion many times, which the two of them met in each race, it was phenomenal.”

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Lewis Hamilton-Nico Rosberg rivalry soured their relations

Mercedes comfortably won the constructors' and drivers' titles in 2016, however, the latter came with its fair share of internal conflicts for the team. An extremely competent car coupled with two extremely talented drivers spelled trouble for the team as the two would often crash out at the front of the grid.

The most infamous case of friction between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg was the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, which saw both drivers take each other out in a first-lap collision. Both drivers blamed the other for causing the incident, with Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff having to step in with diplomatic statements to the press. He said:

“When we looked at the incident, and there are people in the team with racing experience and an opinion, the opinion differed between all of us. What I take home is that it was an incident that could’ve been avoided by both sides. It’s so difficult to really attribute percentages of blame.”

Hamilton eventually lost out to Rosberg at the end of the season but went on to win consecutively from 2017 to 2020. Rosberg retired from the sport following his maiden title victory.

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