Mercedes aims to give Nico Rosberg a winning car soon, but the German is also learning to be patient. Now with more than 100 F1 races behind him, the 26-year-old is yet to record a single race victory and he has now re-signed with Mercedes for at least the next two or three seasons.
Then called Brawn, the Brackley based team won the world championship with Jenson Button in 2009, but that was on the coat-tails of the hundreds of millions invested by Honda.
Today is different, Mercedes-Benz’s Norbert Haug warns.
“He needs to understand that the team is still young,” the German is quoted as saying by Turun Sanomat newspaper. “Brawn won the championship in 2009 but now the team has a completely different structure. Mercedes makes the engines but the rest of the budget comes from sponsors and the income from FOM.”
Haug likens Rosberg to Mika Hakkinen, who after years of toiling without tasting a win finally broke through at the end of 1997 with Mercedes power.
“After that he couldn’t be stopped,” he said.
With his new contract in his pocket, Rosberg revealed in Abu Dhabi that he is prepared to wait a little longer for his breakthrough.
“I would say that right now it will be a lot of patience (needed),” he told F1’s official website. “But there is no doubt in my mind that it is absolutely worth it.”
The German is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport as revealing that amid the recent interest of some other teams, he was buoyed by Mercedes’ obvious determination to succeed.
“The decisive thing for my decision was the commitment of the management, underlined by the signing of Geoff Willis and Aldo Costa. It is quite clear that Mercedes wants to be the best team on the grid.”
Finally, Rosberg – who doesn’t have a manger – thanked his famous father Keke for his help in organising the new Mercedes deal.
“He took care of the paperwork and I am grateful for that,” he said.
Source:GMM
