Nico Rosberg - A Well Deserved Champion?

Is Nico Rosberg the faster man in 2016?

Another win by Lewis Hamilton at the Mexican GP, following his recent win at the US GP a week ago, has reduced Nico Rosbergs points advantage to 19 points with only two races to go. It once more fuels the everlasting discussion about who of the Mercedes stars would be the more deserved world champion of the 2016 Formula 1 season. Despite nine wins and his current points advantage over the world champion, many refuse to agree that Rosberg deserves the title. And well, if you take a closer look at facts and figures, you might realize that these people aren’t so wrong after all.

Talking about the man Nico Rosberg as the world champion, there is nothing wrong with it at all. At least nothing more than with Hamilton being the champion. Whatever Bernie Ecclestone said: Rosberg might not be the showmaster that Hamilton is, but who someone personally grants the world title can always be down to sympathy, right? But we’re in sports. And what counts here, is performance. Funny stuff like the fan boost exists in Formula E. But in Formula 1, being a nice family guy to the public doesn’t make you a deserved champion.

For the past two years, many used to say that Rosberg more often was on the receiving end of technical difficulties compared to his teammate. But in fact, both had their fair share of technical issues in 2014 and 2015 - and in the end, the faster of the two won the crown. In 2015 Hamilton didn’t even leave any room for any doubts or discussions about who would take that world championship. And in 2014, let’s see it like it is, Rosberg only stayed in contention because Hamilton suffered the heavier breakdowns and there were double points awarded at the season finale in Abu Dhabi. In the end both had two total DNFs because of technical issues, but Hamilton had to start from the back of the grid twice after breakdowns in qualifying, which left Rosberg without a lot of contention at the front. Hamilton still took eleven wins to Rosbergs five on his way to the title. That year, Rosberg basically didn’t perform any better than Rubens Barrichello compared to Michael Schumacher or Giancarlo Fisichella compared to Fernando Alonso. But anyway, let’s talk about 2016.

Even though looking at the points table tells you something different this year, it’s not quite what it seems. Rosberg has taken nine victories in 2016, but only five of them were achieved by beating Hamilton on equal terms. Those were Melbourne, Baku, Monza, Singapore and Suzuka. His other four wins in Bahrain, Shanghai, Sochi and Spa Francorchamps were all achieved with Hamilton taken out of contention by collision or technical problems. In Bahrain Bottas bumped into Hamilton at Turn 1. In China, Russia and Belgium Hamilton had to start from further back, or even from the very back. Those four races were handed to Rosberg on a silver plate. With the dominant performance of his Mercedes, he didn’t have anything to do but grab the win.

Hamilton on the other hand managed eight wins, and none of them were aided by Rosberg being eliminated by technical issues. Don’t believe it? Well, let’s see: In Monaco he just blew Rosberg away. He got some help from the Red Bull pitcrew, but well, that didn’t have anything to do with Rosberg, right? In Canada he drove hard against Rosberg in the first turn, but it’s not like Rosberg never tried such thing himself- as we can see at Hamiltons third triumph of the season. In Austria Rosberg certainly had the better pace despite a mild five place grid penalty for a gearbox change. But with a poor and sort of inadequate piece of defensive driving (a.k.a just not turning in and waiting for the opponent having to run off the track) he robbed himself of the win. Hamilton then marched on to win in Silverstone, Budapest and at the Hockenheimring. At the latter of the two Rosberg messed up the start from pole position and thus lost the race - pretty much like Hamilton did in Monza and Suzuka.

After the summer break Hamiltons winning streak was ended by a grid penalty in Spa, due to a change of power unit components as a result of the frequent issues he had at the start of the season. Monza and Singapore were well deserved wins for Rosberg, since Hamilton didn’t get his act together when it mattered. But Hamilton then pulled of another dominant weekend at Malaysia, where an engine failure stopped him from taking a dead sure victory. Rosberg got bumped off by Vettel in Turn 1 that day, but basically it wasn’t anything else than Hamiltons come together with Bottas in Bahrain. So no disadvantage for any of the two in that regard. Either way, since Rosberg didnt’have any technical related DNFs this season, Malaysia is the only reason he is still holding that championship lead. Because without Hamiltons DNF, Rosberg would be nine points behind Hamilton in the current standings.

Facing these facts, I think it’s fair to say that Rosberg didn’t do anything better than the years before and thus wouldn’t be a more deserved champion than he could have potentially been in 2014 or 2015. He just had it very easy in 2016, not having any opposition in plenty of races and hence seeming on the way to his first world championship. Of course many might argue that who scored the most points in the end always is a well deserved world champion. But a look back in history will show quite a few drivers who got to claim the title only because others were on the receiving end of bad luck or worse.

And once again the best example is a Rosberg. Because I honestly don’t think there has ever been any less deserved champion in F1 than Nico’s father Keke, who claimed the title in 1982 with only one win to his name after Gilles Villeneuve was killed at Zolder and his Ferrari teammate Didier Pironi had a career ending crash in the rainsoaked practice session for the German GP at Hockenheim.