11/04/2026
😳 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.”
Credit; f1guydan
