Nico Rosberg ‘turned down £72m’ by quitting Mercedes and retiring from F1

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Nico Rosberg has revealed that he turned down offers of around £72million when he decided to retire from F1 in 2016. Rosberg left the sport as a world champion after winning the title with Mercedes that year.

The move came as a shock to everyone in F1, as Rosberg was still only 31 years old when he decided to call it quits and clearly at the top of his game.

Speaking in an interview with the Times Magazine, the German has disclosed the enormous amount of cash he had been offered to continue in the sport, as well as explaining that he has no regrets over the decision.

Rosberg said: “I wanted to avoid going out as a has-been or someone who is not wanted anymore.

“I mean, there was $100m [£72 million] on the table that I gave up on.

“I longed for a different kind of life. You don’t have flexibility when you’re racing. It was the best decision for my family – I didn’t think about the money for one second.”

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Since retiring from driving, Rosberg has become a vocal pundit for the sport as well as working as a team boss in the new Extreme E racing series which started this year.

The 2016 season was a tight affair, with the rivalry between Rosberg and his main competitor for the title Lewis Hamilton reaching boiling point on several occasions.

That relationship was made more complicated by the fact that both drove for Mercedes- with the Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff having previously admitted that such the competition and in-house feuding made for a toxic environment.

Rosberg finished the season a tiny five points ahead of Hamilton, securing the championship at the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi. The two drivers won all but two of the Grands Prix that season, and Rosberg spoke on how competing at such an elite level fed the unhealthy relationship between teams and drivers.

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Responding to whether or not it was similar to two band members falling out after enjoying a long period of joint success, Rosberg said: “But that’s why they break up eventually, because there is so much at stake.

“And they start fighting more and more and they eventually break up because there’s so much money at stake, so much recognition at stake.”

Rosberg also remembered the rancour and division in the F1 fanbase which came with his and Hamilton’s duelling. In particular he recalled one incident of even very young supporters showing their colours when it came to choosing between the two.

Rosberg said: “There were the two camps, the Nico camp and the Hamilton fans,” he said. “And all the Hamilton fans were against me, of course.

“[Once], there were these four-year-old girls right in front of me with their dads, and they were booing me and giving me the thumbs down. 

“Their dads told them I was bad and that they needed to boo me.”

Hamilton is currently leading the 2021 F1 Drivers’ Championship standings as he looks to win his seventh title out of the last eight years (the one anomaly being Rosberg’s championship), and his eighth in total. Such a victory would surpass Michael Schumacher’s record for championship wins in F1.

F1 returns for the Belgian Grand Prix weekend on August 27, as Max Verstappen looks to close the eight-point deficit to Hamilton and retake the lead in the championship standings.

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