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😳 Nico Rosberg details everything that went into beating Lewis Hamilton in 2016 “My superpower was preparation. That's the superpower. Because natural talent, Lewis is the goat and the greatest, so I'm not going to beat him with natural talent.” “So food, first of all, there's body weight. Three hundredths of a second per lap was one kilogram of my body weight. That's two seconds of race time. So one kilogram will make the difference between winning and coming second. That's crazy.” “My helmet is black because I took the paint off. I'm the only one with a black bare carbon helmet because I went to my helmet manufacturer and asked how much is the paint? They say, well, the difference between raw helmet paint is 80 grams. I was like, well, we're taking it off then. No more paint. And it's all these details. I stopped cycling even though that was my favorite endurance sport and I lost 600 grams from the leg muscles. That's huge. That's more than one and a half hundredths per lap. It's enormous. “Then I get to Suzuka qualifying in my championship year and I'm on pole by two hundredths. That's the helmet, the leg muscles and one other thing that I did that was pole position. And that is then the world championship also because Lewis finishes third, I get the gap in the points and then world championship. It's like everything is just in the finite details that I managed to add up those marginal gains to make significant improvement and eventually managed to beat the unbeatable Lewis.” “…In preparation for 2016, two hours of mental training every two days. It was harder than the physical training, harder than going to the gym to stay focused and attention and work through all of that. And it's loads of things. It's meditation, repetition, visualization, techniques to remain present when you feel emotions of fear coming, when you're terrified to mess up and have the world laughing at you because you're leading the race and you mess up the starts. As a driver, you have those fears.” “…So, with my psychologist, very important for me in my championship year was also never, ever, ever use the word championship in any media conversation. Never engage in, because you would always say, now you're the favorite for the championship, right, Nico? And just deviate the best way for me to perform is to think about next race only. I want to be preparing for next race to win next race. I even said that at the last race, when it was only about the championship. Because it also it comes back at you, and whatever you say is a repetition inward as well.”

I am absolutely loving how Ferrari are letting these two go at it, whether that is contractual or not, it’s the way it should be on track. The main thing they need to fix is laying down an absolutely brutal mandate on them regarding the political games and media posturing, with a gag order and severe consequences for breaking it. Then, gloves off and let them go at it on track, which is what we all want to see! There’s nothing of consequence left this season for the team, and some meaningless random race results are not a good enough reason to start being heavy-handed with your drivers. The overall circumstances should dictate the methods, and right now it should be full on assault mode for the both of them going into 2027. It’s been exciting to see Hamilton return to his 2020 form, rid of the ground effect cars. Unfortunately for Charles, that resurgence coincides with his weakest season of his career thus far. But even so, there’s hardly anything that separates them. A mechanical DNF and podium finish is the entire gap. That should be pretty exciting, and that’s exactly what Ferrari we’re going to get when they paired these two. No sense in trying to walk it back now, live with what you’ve created and enjoy the fireworks!