Formula One needs to ‘increase the unpredictability’, says world champion Nico Rosberg
The 2016 F1 world champion thinks that the sport is too expensive and the cars are too complex, with the German calling for changes from the FIA
Formula One world champion Nico Rosberg has called for the FIA to cap team costs and simplify the cars to make the sport “as entertaining as possible”.
Rosberg, who won the title in 2016 and then retired less than a week later, thinks that Formula One’s sporting director Ross Brawn and the FIA needs to bring the cost of running teams down to level the playing field as well as making the cars much simpler than they currently are.
The German said: “There are a couple of downsides in this sport. The aerodynamics at the moment are too complex, so it’s too difficult to follow other cars and therefore more difficult to overtake at the moment.
“Then of course bringing down costs, as they have spiralled out of control. The FIA should on focus on capping costs a little bit, or a lot, just to increase this unpredictability and to make the budgets the teams have a little less important. It would also give opportunities to teams with slightly smaller budgets to fight at the front and win some races from time to time.”
Rosberg did say, however, that the 2018 season has been very entertaining so far, with Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo sharing the six race wins so far.
“We can all agree that it’s been a great season so far, you never really know who is going to win,” Rosberg said.
“You need that unpredictability, and that’s fantastic. We go to Canada now and we have no idea who is going to win – really impossible to know and that’s perfect.”
The Press Association spoke to Rosberg when he was promoting the ‘When You Drive, Never Drink’ campaign from Heineken, with the German starring in the beer company’s recently released ‘No Compromises’ advertisement.
When asked about the campaign, Rosberg said: “I hope I can be the perfect guy to portray this message as it’s all about no compromise, which is how I lived my life to win a world championship. It was the approach that was needed to beat Lewis Hamilton to become world champion and there was absolutely no compromise in my life and I hope I can add a lot of credibility to this messaging we’re trying to portray.
This year in Formula One, Rosberg is backing his former Mercedes teammate and rival Lewis Hamilton to win his fifth world championship at the end of the current season.
“It’s going to be between Vettel and Hamilton, it seems to be those two. I still can’t imagine Hamilton and Mercedes losing it – they’re just such a force over the course of a season and I think the odds are still in favour of Lewis at the moment, but it’s tight and will be close till the end of the season.”
Having retired just days after the end of the 2016 season, Rosberg is enjoying his life out of the cockpit.
“I have more freedom now in my calendar, and if my daughter has her birthday, I know I’ll be there 100 per cent. If my best friend is getting married, I know I’ll be there 100 per cent as I can decide and that’s something I’m treasuring a lot at the moment.”
