Something We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Nico Rosberg, And Honestly Even Though It Involved

something we don’t talk about when we talk about nico rosberg, and honestly even though it involved being a horrendous cunt, is that he did what generations of drivers have tried and failed to do - he refused to be made second driver and still walked away with his championship.

like think about that. there are so many people in my memory, and many more before that, that fell to that hurdle by accepting their fate or switching teams and making the wrong call, or just never quite getting there. you’ve got valtteri and daniel and mark webber and felipe massa and before that you have rubens barrichello and david coulthard and eddie irvine and so on and so on. and they either had some moment of quiet resignation to it or they let it completely destroy them, sometimes both.

nico rosberg was the part of the foundations of mercedes. he was there since it took the name mercedes and was brought in to play second fiddle to michael fucking schumacher, and then he outdrove him every damn day, when the mercedes wasn’t championship contention material but was outclassing the rest of the midfield. i remember it so well when you had button and hamilton at mclaren, vettel and webber were at red bull, and alonso and massa were at ferrari. you had no idea what was gonna happen with that top six but you could count on one thing like clockwork, nico rosberg would be seventh, making that scrappy little bastard of a car sing.

and then lewis arrived when schumi left and people assumed nico would play that second fiddle like he hadn’t won them the lion’s share of the points with schumi in the other car. no one gave him his due. and then the car was a winning car and he was suddenly a winner, someone no one had ever rated from that stacked as hell grid. and lewis already had his championship. he wanted more, sure, but he didn’t need to prove that he had it in him the way nico did with his dad and everything else hanging over his head.

let’s not beat around the bush, mercedes wanted him to be second driver. toto came in with lewis and didn’t respect what nico had achieved under ross brawn. lewis was already a championship winner even if nico knew the car and the team much better. certainly the management at mercedes were never on his side once toto took the reigns. and lewis must have expected it somewhat too, it’s just how teams work. and his long-standing teammate at that point had been jenson, who had just as many championships and seniority in the sport, which made them as close to equals as possible and also frustrated lewis no end at that time because on some days he was second driver. it was owed to him, at last, to have a teammate whose only job was to prop him up.

i’m not saying if it was the right decision, or the ethical decision, or a decision that he doesn’t deeply and intimately regret, but the point at which nico had to say to himself no, lewis isn’t allowed to do this to me, no i won’t be second fiddle, not even to my best friend, must have required such strength of conviction like sport has never seen. and yeah it’s sad to think that a championship ended a friendship that old and that caring, but reframe it for a moment. what must it have felt like to escape out from under the thumb of schumacher who was never ever going to support nico, who could be affable outside racing but had a long history of being the meanest of sports on the grid, and think finally, a friend, someone to support and care for me, someone who wants me to win just like i want him to win, and be told no, it’s just the same as it was. like yes this is work, but imagine what that would do to you in any career - a fellow artist, a fellow businessman - to be told that your friend, in any context, sees you as an obstacle to overcome, or even worse just a tool to get ahead.

like we make fun of that - look at the man that sold his soul for a championship - but so did everyone else, so did lewis even. we have no idea who went first in sacrificing the friendship to the flames but we do know it was the first time nico ever fucked someone over in the sport. he’d never driven a winning car before. lewis had, and lord knows he learnt well enough from fernando, from jenson even.

nico had never had the opportunity to do it, and even when he was teammates with schumi, it was a noticeably sedate schumi racing in a midfield car. there wasn’t a championship for him to snatch at like he had done before. and that must do damage to you, as someone that’s never been at that kind of desperate infighting team before. and to have someone who is supposed to love you more than anyone else on the grid right there in it, in your first true experience of it? ooft.

then you think about him retiring, right after he’s finally done it. he must have wanted to step away before hand but imagine that friendship up in smoke and to go away empty-handed, with nothing to show for it. so he says no, i have to have this championship. all this had to have been for something. think about keke, who won one world championship pretty much by accident. how he won because the front runners on the grid that season died in those cars. and what had just happened to poor old jules. and how keke has always insisted that nico is his greatest achievement, not his championship, his son. and nico has just become a father. think about how important his daughters are to him, how much he loves them. how he was burning down his relationship with vivian too just to get this stupid title, these stupid trophies.

and maybe some part of him thinks i can fix this, i can have lewis back if i just put the weapons down, if i walk away. but lewis doesn’t see it like that - he sees it as cowardly, that nico took something from him and didn’t give him the chance to get it back, even though held already proved over and over and over that he could beat nico, that he was definitively the better driver. but nico only had to be better once - keke won his championship with a single race win to his name that season and it was enough. goddamit it was enough. and even if it hurt him to give up being in that car, nico had things that were more important. just once was enough for him in a way it never could be for lewis. lewis has nothing else, no partner, no children, no real friends at that point. of course he could never understand. maybe he envied nico in that moment, for once to be enough, but lewis never had that luxury.

god it’s so tragic, but nico really did achieve the impossible.

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nico rosberg i really love him well done nico

More Posts from Angelopps and Others

angelopps

7 months ago

if i was charles, i would simply pull the 'but you promised 15-20 years of us racing together' card at max everytime he mentioned retirement. that + the puppy eyes would work 100%

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lestappen

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angelopps

7 months ago

things like Charles "upgrading" his yacht are honestly such a nice reminder to not let this whole f1 fan thingy I've got going on here get too parasocial. i love f1 as a sport and i admire what the drivers do heavily but that's it. i love the fandom aspect of it so much and im very glad I've got a community to weird out with on tumblr. but f1 as an institution? fuck off. it shouldn't exist. there's so much corruption and power struggles and men that simply should never be given that much power. not to mention that they drive in countries that are at the very least morally questionable. i know that not all drivers get paid outrageous amounts but those that do just do not deserve that. and that's not to say that I would deserve it more or something. it's just that no human should ever be given that much money. no one in this godforsaken world needs to own a private jet or a yacht. i also think it says a whole lot about the ethics of drivers when they move to tax havens such as monaco. at the end of the day it's always nice to have the reminder that as much as they wanna appear normal they do live in a completely different world (undeserved at that) than most people on here and i think it's important to be aware of that and act accordingly.

I'm so sorry if anyone followed this blog thinking it's going to be a fun lil Lestappen experience, only to get hit by this, lol.

But, yes. Yes to everything you said, especially this:

at the end of the day it's always nice to have the reminder that as much as they wanna appear normal they do live in a completely different world

It doesn't matter how much the young drivers (and their partners) in particular are trying to push the 'regular guy' narrative. As previously discussed, not all of them come from wealth, but they very much are rich now. And no matter how nice someone may be, the number one priority of any rich person is this: stay rich, and become even richer.

Here's the thing: no system will ever be fair, or just, or equal. And private wealth has, historically, always played a crucial role in supporting the people, the arts, the sports. So I applaud the drivers for supporting karting, for example, and helping young people to get into the sport. In the absence of a system that will help those in need of support, we do rely on private financial aid. But what I'm getting at is that this charity work, for example, really doesn't do anything to diminish someone's wealth. Even the kindest and most generous people help because they know that they can afford to; because they will still be rich. Even some rich people lobbying for being taxed more might come from the right place, but even after taxing more, the people in question will still hold their shares and get their dividends and own their properties.

Which, I might sound overly cynical. Perhaps I am. I don't want to act like people doing something to help others and to help create a better system isn't important. It is. To some young driver in karting, that donation might mean the world. Even if the rich remain rich, higher taxes would still be collected. I just want to highlight that even the best intentions and actions are happening with the caveat that the system itself won't change; and the rich person's priority remains their own wealth.

And don't get me wrong. I, too, am very much part of that system, so I'm not going to call for a revolution. But I can only laugh at the mental gymnastics so-called Marxists and Socialists today do in order to justify their consumption under the whole "no ethical consumption under capitalism" thing. Anyway, that's just a personal gripe of mine. It is also equally absolutely my firm belief that communism and socialism can never truly be achieved, but that's a discussion for another day.

Anyway. To get back to your initial point and to make it about f1 again. As you said, it is nice to have this community, and to be weird together about f1. But the drivers are not your friends. I'm not saying they're bad people, but these individuals absolutely shouldn't be put on some sort of moral pedestal.

I think with social media encouraging that parasocial relationship, it can be difficult to separate the driver and the person, but it needs to be done if you don't want to be left disappointed. And, by the way, that also very much extends to their partners. Don't treat these girls and women as a parasocial y/n situation. They're just as wealthy and privileged and they very much sell a lifestyle the same way that drivers do. Basically, don't worship these individuals as people and treat them with distance and rationality, as you would with anyone that you don't know at all.

Ultimately, it's important to understand that you can support Charles as a driver without always agreeing with everything that he does as a person. And this applies to absolutely every single driver. I know there's always the Max fans that no longer can support him as a driver because of his relationship, or certain actions. And while I get that, it's literally always been this way; it's just that some fans tend to have a very pick and choose approach to what they deem to be acceptable in terms of 'good' behaviour they can support.

Anyway. Don't treat these drivers as your friends. Don't act like you know them. Don't be disappointed when they act exactly like people in that social class do. Draw a line between them as drivers and as people. And if you can't do that, f1 might honestly be the wrong sport for you.

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angelopps

7 months ago

I love how Max has never assumed that Charles would hit his kart out of recklessness or inability to drive well. Anytime Charles has done something outrageous Max knows Charles could have overtaken him cleanly but assumes 'he hit me on purpose!'. This man really has never doubted Charles skill from the beginning.

he never gives him the benefit of doubt. this kiddo has been giving him nightmares since the inchident because Charles chose to hit him and dared to say it wasnt on purpose 😽

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lestappen

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angelopps

1 year ago

I was expecting the F1 silly season to have me turning in my bed losing sleep with how much y’all hyped it up. Unfortunately, I’m a Barcelona fan moving through the transfer season. Ain’t nothing F1 can throw at me that’ll top that insanity.

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angelopps

1 year ago

back to the origins

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somebody send help elon musk force me to come back i dont know how to use this

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angelopps

1 year ago

i hate perez getting dotd, he has a fucking rocketship, and its HIS FAULT he qualified bad. of course he will get to the podium IN A FUCKING ROCKETSHIP. he shouldnt be getting rewards for qualifying shit every single race week

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angelopps

6 months ago

"c'mon charles so many mistakes"

max verstappen do you realise you guys aren't teammates, he can't hear you, do you realise you aren't teammates?

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f1 lestappen

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angelopps

1 year ago

there’s absolutely nothing better than reading a 100k word fanfic, that is until you remember you have a body that is starving, thirsty and incredibly sleep deprived and hasn’t used the bathroom since the sun set 8 hours ago

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angelopps

7 months ago

bring me the boy. yes. The boy who is Full of Love and Joy