Nico Rosberg recalls his famous crash with Lewis Hamilton in Barcelona: What he saw later in the data and still finds ‘unbelievable’ today
Nine years ago, the famous crash between the two “silver rivals” Nine years ago, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton collided on the opening lap of the Spanish Grand Prix. Ahead of this year’s race, memories were once again brought back to the surface, with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, two teammates competing for the world championship, lining up on the front row of the grid – just like on that day in May 2016…
Rosberg, now a TV expert, still remembers the collision and the subsequent dressing-down both drivers received from the Mercedes bosses, as he revealed on the sidelines of the race in Barcelona.
The German was riding a wave of success at the time, coming to Catalonia with seven wins in a row across two seasons and a comfortable lead in the championship. In qualifying, however, Hamilton had the upper hand in the Silver Arrow duel, but Rosberg got off to the better start:
“I took the lead from Lewis on the outside, but I had chosen the wrong engine setting, and that slowed me down on the way to turn four,” Rosberg recalls on Sky: “Lewis then tried to take the inside, I blocked him very late, very aggressively,” the German admits.
Rosberg could hardly believe it when he looked at the data
However: “He went onto the grass and we could see later in the data that he never lifted off the throttle. He stayed fully on the grass, which is incredible,” said Rosberg: “Then, of course, there was a collision, which is really the worst-case scenario and also dangerous.”
At least the relationship between the rivals didn’t suffer too much from the incident, as Rosberg notes with gallows humor: “It was already bad, so it didn’t really change much,” says the German – but within the team, the collision naturally made things worse: “It was an extremely intense and difficult situation to manage internally as well.”
Rosberg points out: “Lewis and I didn’t talk and just tried… but then there was the internal politics of who was on whose side, who was to blame… it was very tough.”
