Nico Rosberg Pinpoints ‘Shock Therapy’ Move by Toto Wolff over Lewis Hamilton Title Battle in 2016

Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton might go down as one of the greatest teammate duos in Formula 1 history. The two pushed each other to the limit, and Rosberg proved to be a worthy rival to the seven-time world champion. However, things weren’t always easy to manage at Brackley due to the intense rivalry between them, commonly called the Silver War. Now, the 2016 F1 champion reveals a shocking trick that Team Principal Toto Wolff used at the time to ease tensions within the team.

Formula 1 is a sport of intense rivalry, regardless of the great bond shared by the drivers off the track. Even the greatest of friends might suffer from a fallout in friendship due to the fierce nature of the pinnacle of motorsport. Despite Nico Rosberg claiming that the two made up in their friendship after retiring from the team, some resentment might still be present. Rosberg now reminisces about how toxic the internal situation at the team got with Lewis Hamilton and how Toto Wolff had to intervene to fix the issues.

Lewis Hamilton tasted defeat against Rosberg in the 2016 season championship. Due to the German’s positive performances, there was a big toxic phase in the team where the issues in his car were not even informed to Hamilton, so that his performance in the championship weakened against his teammate. This meant that the seven-time champion was intentionally kept in the dark about a lot of vehicular issues to put him at a big disadvantage. A similar approach was adopted by the Briton’s engineers.

So in our time, at the beginning of 2016, it was so toxic that even when something failed on my car, my mechanics would sometimes, like, not really tell the other side.

Nico Rosberg told Sky Sports F1

Rosberg revealed the shocking trick that Toto Wolff used to counter this issue. The Austrian swapped the mechanics of both the drivers overnight as they were forced to work alongside their appointed driver. While this might have caused some communication errors at first, the German highlighted that the trick worked wonders. This helped ease tensions between the two camps, forcing both drivers to work together again.

So what Toto did was overnight, swap the mechanics over, and the mechanics are my friends, my family, and suddenly they were on Lewis’s car, and Lewis’s mechanics on my side were kind of my enemies. And that was like a shock therapy, and it worked amazingly, it did.

Nico Rosberg added

Nico Rosberg claims relationship with Lewis Hamilton ‘spiraled’ step-by-step

It isn’t uncommon for two teammates to resent one another due to one’s improvement in performance. However, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg’s rivalry caused a lot of damage to Mercedes’ results, which might have had a greater setback than anticipated. As such, Rosberg believes that his relationship with Hamilton wasn’t as hurt since the beginning of their career.