Ferrari, Nico Rosberg drastic on Lewis Hamilton: "A stain on career"
Zero wins and zero podiums for Lewis Hamilton in his first season with Ferrari: the seven-time world champion certainly did not expect such a bad start to his adventure with the Maranello-based stable. The feeling with the SF-25 was never there, and the British driver, who started out with great ambitions, ended the year in continual deterioration. His former teammate Nico Rosberg threw salt on the wound to the microphones of Sky Sports: “The situation got worse week by week.”
“You could clearly see how uncomfortable he was in the car. When have we ever seen Lewis Hamilton spin during a normal lap in a free practice session? In his entire career we have never seen anything like that. And now, at Ferrari, he makes several mistakes. He simply does not feel comfortable with that car,” continued Rosberg, world champion in 2016. According to the German driver, Hamilton is not ending his career worthily, “It’s been a terrible season for him, and it’s not a worthy way to end his career.”
“Hamilton gets beaten by his teammate all the time, struggles to qualify for Q2, and goes off the track for no reason,” Rosberg continued. “It couldn’t get any worse, it’s a real nightmare. Personally, he will experience it even more heavily than we can see from the outside. He is the best, there’s no doubt about that, but this season leaves a stain on the memory we will have of him,” the former Mercedes driver, who also gives Hamilton no hope regarding next season.
“By now Lewis is almost 41 years old. We know he won’t get any faster, time is not on his side,” Rosberg said. Hamilton concluded his year with these words, “I’m not particularly relieved about the end of the World Championship, no. I’m looking forward to enjoying the stop. Now there is not much to say about this season. Everything I could say, I’ve already said. Now let’s move on.”
And to critics he responded thus, attacking, “My retirement? To all those who say that, I don’t want to say anything. None of them did what I did. So they are not even on my level.”
