Nico Rosberg on the most frightening moment of his career

      Nico Rosberg, the 2016 world champion, participated in the latest episode of the High Performance podcast, and during a detailed one-and-a-half-hour conversation, he was asked to recall a particular moment in his career when he felt the strongest sense of fear.

      "The most frightening moment of my entire career came during the middle of the race in Abu Dhabi in 2016 when I was fighting for the championship title," Nico replied almost without thinking. "Lewis Hamilton was trying to hold me back, and because of that, I lost position to Max Verstappen, who had not yet pitted.

      In general, I was driving behind Max, who was having a great race, as he often does, and other guys were catching up to us. Lewis was continuing to pull away, and then my engineer, Tony Ross, said to me over the radio: 'Nico, now you have to overtake Verstappen; otherwise, you risk losing the championship!'

      I had been working towards this for about twenty years; it was my childhood dream, and when it seemed like it was within reach, the circumstances suddenly took a completely unexpected and extremely difficult turn! I found myself behind Verstappen, which usually never happened because our Mercedes cars were much faster.

      And here I was stuck behind Max, who at that time was just crazy on the track – now he has changed, acting much more thoughtfully and judiciously because he strives for championship wins. Back then, he had nothing to lose – I don't remember how old he was, 18 or 19 – and I understood that my chances were 50/50. Battles with him ended in crashes half the time, and the likelihood of successfully overtaking him was no more than 25%. The other 25% we leave for the possibility that the overtaking won't work. (laughs)

      In general, the situation was not in my favor, and Tony, my engineer, told me that I simply had to overtake Max in the next two laps. Oh my God, it was just awful! And then I made a decisive attack and will be forever grateful to Verstappen for leaving me some space on the track!

      We didn't collide, although he held his position, and by the time we approached the next corner, he was still ahead of me. So I attacked him again, and when I finally managed to overtake him, I felt my right leg starting to shake – I was so scared that my dreams and hopes would go up in smoke if I made a mistake and crashed the car.

      Moreover, the shaking was very strong – it wasn't some weak vibrations! It was just pounding, something that had never happened to me before! At the same time, you need to work the throttle very precisely, but because of the intense shaking, I couldn't do it anymore; I couldn't accelerate properly.

      It must be said that in such a psychological state, problems accumulate like a snowball: you start to think that because of all this, you simply can't drive anymore, and that makes your leg shake even more!

      Fortunately, despite my shaking leg, I somehow managed to get through that sequence of corners, and for some reason, Verstappen was still behind. Then came the straight, and I pressed the accelerator with all the weight of my leg, although usually, you only need to work with your foot. In general, I somehow managed to give it full throttle, and by the time I approached the next corner, the shaking had lessened a bit.

      Only then did the thought flash that maybe everything wasn't so bad! In short, I managed to return to a more or less normal state, and I was able to drive the car again.

      This episode was the worst moment of my entire career. When I heard my engineer's words that I had to make that overtake, I thought I was going to lose the title again – as had always happened in previous years. At first, the thought was exactly that: 'Is it happening again?!!..' After all, in the previous two seasons, I had finished second in the world championship. And Lewis had won, and it was the same in karting: I was second, and he was first…

      And at that moment, I was horrified – despite all the work with the psychologist. It was an instinctive thought because, despite talking to a sports psychology specialist, changing your natural reactions is very difficult.

      In modern Formula 1, Lando Norris behaves somewhat like this. For him, the glass is always half empty. When he wins pole position, despite a great qualifying lap, he will talk not about that but about one specific corner that could have been taken better. Because Lando tends to doubt himself – he is not one of those who always has complete confidence in his abilities. Unlike Verstappen.

      And I can also be compared to Lando in this regard; I have a similar type of psyche. However, there are advantages to this: you ask yourself more questions, and since overconfidence is not characteristic of you, you work harder on yourself, paying attention to all the nuances..."