Who slept best last night: Nico Rosberg

(Motorsport-Total.com) - Dear readers,

If by far the best Formula 1 reporter in the Spa paddock this weekend is a former racing driver, then that could say a lot about the state of an entire profession – or rather how poor critical reporting is these days, in a paddock that is increasingly flooded by the "influencer" phenomenon.

Well, if something sounds like an illness, then it usually is one...

And yet it is only a symptom of a zeitgeist that will not stop at the premier league in 2025: people who think everything is great as long as they are allowed in are ultimately easier to control for PR agents who want to dictate their headlines or even entire stories to annoying journalists, as well as for teams that deny unwanted press access to media rounds or even take legal action against them.

Rosberg puts Verstappen on the spot: "Now you're calm"

But apparently, there's still a small Gallic village in the almost completely occupied Formula 1 realm that offers hope. It's curious that the person who represents it has the hairstyle of Troubadix, the blond, long-haired bard whose mouth is always gagged so that one doesn't have to listen to his music.

A feeling with which many of the long-silenced heroes of Formula 1 journalism can certainly identify. It's telling that, instead of them, Nico Rosberg, in his role as TV pundit, is now providing the critical voices and prompting questions. It helps that Rosberg—in plain English—apparently doesn't give a damn. Which is why one or two of the protagonists in Spa probably wished they had a gag with them...

Example number one: Jos Verstappen. On the starting grid, Rosberg confronts him once again directly with the ouster of his favorite enemy, Christian Horner, as team boss at Red Bull : "Last year, you said Horner had to go because he was destroying the team," Rosberg hurries.

Verstappen interrupts with a shrug: "That was a year and a half ago. So, it's different," says the Niederlänger, who adds: "I have nothing to say. It's okay." Rosberg interjects: "Now you're quiet," whereupon Verstappen leans forward in surprise. Rosberg repeats: "You're quiet now?" - "I'm always quiet," a visibly annoyed Verstappen rebukes him.

Bottas, Norris and Co. - Rosberg shows no mercy

The curious snapshot is just the beginning of a whole series of unpleasant questions that the German hurls at the protagonists of the scene. Rosberg even grabs his Mercedes successor, Valtteri Bottas, and asks bluntly: "New contract with Cadillac?" Bottas initially plays deaf: "I can't hear you." Rosberg: "Just rumors, right?" Bottas again: "There are a lot of rumors in this sport..."

But even active drivers such as Lando Norris and Kimi Antonelli get their fair share of criticism from the German on Sunday, who is increasingly presenting himself as the expert that Rosberg himself - even in his active days - would probably have hated: Speaking out loud, relentless, always confrontational, Rosberg puts his finger on every sore spot - with an accuracy that can only be had by someone who knows exactly what he is talking about from experience.

In his post-race analysis, Rosberg takes Norris, who was once again prone to making mistakes, to task: The Briton was "a bit asleep" when the race was given the go-ahead, and later in the race he made "three mistakes" that "a Hamilton or a Verstappen" probably wouldn't have made, Rosberg argues - while McLaren boss Zak Brown is standing right next to him: "You saw that too, didn't you?" the German cheekily asks his counterpart.

Rosberg is also not gentle with former team Mercedes and rookie Kimi Antonelli, even though the young Italian once drove in his kart team and Rosberg even helped him with the financing : The newcomer has "certainly accepted a few too many distractions this year," is his harsh verdict, because Antonelli received visitors from the local football club and his schoolmates in Imola, for example.

"No friends": Rosberg starts with Antonelli

"You have to erase all of that, erase it completely: zero, go down to zero with this stuff. Just you and your team, race, that's it," says Rosberg, someone who should know: Because it was precisely this ascetic isolation and focus on the absolute minimum that ultimately gave him the necessary push to win the world championship title in 2016.

"No friends or family either, leave them all at home. Leave everything at home that distracts you, prepare with the team, go into the simulator, double the simulator time at the factory – just preparation, preparation, preparation. That's the best thing he can do," said Rosberg.

Whether he's making friends with such wise-guy advice and the sharpness of many of his statements is doubtful, but the German doesn't seem to care. The next example is his former team boss Toto Wolff—Rosberg also spills the beans about the Viennese and his upcoming contract negotiations with George Russell:

"It's terrible negotiating with Toto, because his tactic is to just disappear," laughs the former Mercedes star. "So if you try to get him like George did, Toto will be gone. He even knows how to avoid the blue ticks." No, apparently not a personalized special setting from team partner WhatsApp for the Silver Arrows boss...

Rosberg doesn't care about fabric softener and egocentrism

Rather, Rosberg reveals with a wink: "Once the message pops up as a notification, he will only read the first part and not really open it. I just remember my times, and that was his style: disappearing, not answering, being difficult to reach - and that's terrible because you have no chance."

Rosberg is certainly capable of providing fantastic insights behind the scenes, into the inner workings of a Formula 1 team. He benefits from the fact that he still has excellent connections in the paddock, and that his own time in the cockpit wasn't that long ago, and that he even drove against some of the current drivers himself.

Even more crucial than his purely technical expertise, however, is Rosberg's straightforward attitude, with clear opinions, statements and the ability - unlike some of his fellow experts - not to always put himself in the spotlight in order to secure even better advertising deals or even more Netflix fame.

The consistent, ostentatious ignorance of the sometimes overly watered-down practices of Formula 1's tame media circus is indeed refreshing. In short: Rosberg is finally asking the protagonists the uncomfortable questions that Kai Ebel and his co. were previously afraid to ask him.

Although, to be fair, it must be said that the former pilot's status as world champion naturally helps to make him above all doubt, automatically placing him above the rest of those present in almost every discussion.

The brilliant return of the leper

Only once in recent years has Rosberg caused controversy himself, and once he too was - in the truest sense of the word - not immune to the many rules of the paddock: namely when the former world champion was suddenly no longer allowed into the paddock due to Formula 1's strict corona rules and had to hang around like a leper in front of the gates of the big show with a small camera crew while he was connected.

Back then, I felt sorry for Rosberg. But Sky still stuck with their most valued expert, who, thanks to his multilingualism, bounces back and forth between the various national editions of the TV station—making him even more valuable to the network than, say, Damon Hill, who was also very good and opinionated, but also often very uncomfortable, and who was dropped before the current season.

However, Rosberg's rise in television still has a dark side, as I discovered firsthand at the season finale in Abu Dhabi last year: After a brief private chat with him and Augusto Farfus, whom I know well from our time together in the DTM, I asked Nico if I could have a few more statements from him "on record" afterwards.

Politely but firmly, he told me that he didn't want that: He didn't do any print anymore (even though almost everything is online these days, meaning the writing profession, of course) - he only did television.

Admittedly, at first I was a bit annoyed by this statement, because during his active days - in the often very political duel with Lewis Hamilton and the many power games behind the scenes at Mercedes - it was precisely the German-speaking press that always stood by Rosberg and supported him tirelessly.

I have to say now: If journalism is threatened with decline in the age of TikTok, AI, and the like, then it's time to say: Long live Rosberg TV! As long as he delivers like he did on Sunday in Spa, I, for one, can live with it...

Yours, Frederik Hackbarth