Nico Rosberg is still not pleased with memories of Lewis Hamilton pushing him off track and claiming the 3rd World Championship at the 2015 US GP.
It’s been 6 years since Nico Rosberg claimed the 2016 F1 World Championship title. The German decided to battle his teammate Lewis Hamilton until the last race of the season to claim his only title.
The 23-GP winning driver had a bitter rivalry with Mercedes’s marquee Hamilton. Although the two were best friends in their karting days, it became heated when the two shared the garage for the Silver Arrows.
Hamilton denied Rosberg a shot at the title in 2014 and 2015 despite his valiant efforts. And the one that stings the most for Rosberg will be from the 2015 US GP when he was denied a fair battle by Lewis.
Rosberg went to the US GP with a 66-point deficit to Lewis. He needed to win the race in order to stay in the title race. Nico got an early advantage as he was given the pole position for Sunday’s race after the qualification was called off due to bad weather.
But the race did not go in the German’s favour. Hamilton started P2 and go to a better start. He went into the first corner aggressively and pushed his teammate off the track. Rosberg lost additional 3 positions, entering the track P5.
Hamilton won the race and claimed his 3rd F1 title. Rosberg finished P2 and was out of the championship battle. Recently, F1 posted a recap of the 2015 US GP.
A user named ‘Serbarbolito’ commented: “Hamilton pushing off his rival at COTA T1, what a classic.” To which Nico replied with an Angry emoji.
View this post on Instagram
Seems like the 2016 World Champion is still now over it yet. After all, he was so frustrated with his teammate and would throw a cap at him!
Why Nico Rosberg threw a cap at Lewis Hamilton?
The infamous ‘Cap-gate’ as it’s known by F1 fans is one of the most iconic cool-down room moments. Lewis Hamilton passed Nico Rosberg his P2 cap while the latter was frustrated with the result.
Nico threw the cap back to the race winner dejected with the outcome of the race. He played down the incident saying it was “just our typical games.”
Throwback… 👀#USGP pic.twitter.com/N6wx7nEkxO
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 19, 2018
But Nico was moved by what happened on the track. He described the emotion in his column, “I was just pissed off. At myself, at Lewis, at the whole situation. Everything!”
He adds, “At the moment it feels as though there is something invisible stopping me from succeeding. An enemy that is so hard to combat. Some call it fate, others bad luck.”
Nico Rosberg on horrendous 2015 US GP
Nico Rosberg was not impressed by the opening lap antics. He felt the incident at Turn 1 was Rosberg said, “It was extremely aggressive.”
He added, “I was ahead and I had a right to the track there and Lewis just was too aggressive today. One step too far and that is not okay.” Hamilton denied being aggressive and stated he was lacking grip and was forced to take a wide turn.
As next weekend we are going back to COTA, let’s remember 2015 race, when a wheelspin mistake by Nico Rosberg not only handed Lewis the lead, but also resulted in him winning his 3rd #F1 championship. It also gave us the infamous boomerang cap scene 😅 pic.twitter.com/0CN6THE7eK
— Simon Dau (@there_is_no_if) October 15, 2022
But the German says that was the moment that changed him. Nico says after this race he stopped being the “nice guy” and went with an elbows-out approach.
He would enter a 7 race-winning streak, winning the remaining 3 races of the 2015 season. And winning the opening 4 races of the 2016 campaign until the 2016 Spanish GP. He would beat Hamilton by 5 points to win the title and announce his shock retirement.
