#rey.ask

nico was far less involved with the paddock at that point, having a second daughter and whatnot. but by late 2018 and throughout 2019, he was VERY much doing his sky punditry work and his youtube stuff. the issue was nico was seen as shitstirring and almost clickbait-y with his work? he took a few snipes at lewis, seb, and max that season and most people saw this as nico not being able to accept he was now retired - like an old guy clinging on to his youth, pretty much. example -

ect, which now would be tolerated by part of the community, but there is still a large part who only see nico as a whiner and not able to move on due to how he acted at this time. it didn't help that nico took jabs at sebastian, and lewis defended seb multiple times in late 2018/2019 - example from late 2018, bearing in mind that nico is now part of that "media" which seb & lewis would push back against -

about max - nico did praise his abilities, but he called max a narcissist (lmao) and generally spoke about him too aggressive, etc, which caused max to snap back at the press during the summer. his full quote roughly translated from dutch is -

"I don't give a damn what he says on his channels anyway. I think he's the new Jacques Villeneuve. Villeneuve has changed quite a bit by now, but it seems as if Rosberg is now always trying to express a contrary opinion. Maybe he wants to attract viewers or something? He does it a lot. At the beginning of this year he called me a narcissist. That's very extreme. He's got no charisma, and he doesn't get to work anywhere. That is also his problem. Maybe he wants to make money with his Youtube channel. But he would have been better off driving on, then he could have made a lot more money."

yikes! a very harsh assessment, but i think it was a sentiment carried by both lewis and max (and seb? he never really spoke about it tbh) who were often at the end of nico's comments. nowadays, we know that the press don't really ask lewis to comment on nico's statements and lewis doesn't really speak about brocedes (except bahrain 2014 ofc). NOT the case at this time - nico was now back in the paddock, recording and criticising everything, and because he was so outspoken in his thoughts, these drivers were constantly being asked about their thoughts on whatever nico had said to media/youtube. part of me thinks that this soured lewis on nico in general and is a major reason why lewis still doesn't entertain nico. he hasn't really since that summer/autumn of 2019 - lewis wants to move past a lot of 2014-16, meanwhile 2019 nico was seen as even more of a bitter ex than he is currently. whatever good will was made in 2017/18 got taken away by the media (granted a lot of the times nico would say a very tiny comment and it would get blown up because it's nico who was saying it) and i don't know if we're only now getting it back?

anyway sir nonchalant lewis hamilton did have something to say about max's above comment. he posted this story -

and said to the media (x)

"I thought it [Verstappen's remark] was really funny. I think Max is generally a really funny guy so I was cracking up when I saw it. It's interesting because obviously we know what it's like, all the drivers have been here and know what it's like being criticised from the public, and when in the sport [they] moan about being criticised by people from the outside. "And then when drivers retire they become those critics, so it's an interesting dynamic. Unfortunately drivers become irrelevant when they retire and ultimate have to hang on to utilise other people's light to keep them in the light. But that's the way of sport, I guess."

also 2019 was this story made by lewis -

some say this was meant to be about paul di resta, but this was a pretty clear response to nico when he also said (x)

In his video blog before the Hungarian GP Rosberg suggested that Max Verstappen had overcome Hamilton to become "the best driver out there." The former world champion added that Hamilton had passed his peak in terms of pure ability, saying that "the best age for racing drivers is 30, 31, 32 – and that's because your ability as you're getting older slightly decreases, but experience counts so much in this sport. "So experience will outdo the small decrease in your natural ability as a human as you get a bit older." Told of Rosberg's suggestion that age was becoming a factor, Hamilton was unimpressed. "I've never seen the blog, I don't know who follows it, but it has no bearing on anything that I do," he said after his Hungarian GP win. "I don't care, everyone has their own opinion. Whether he's right or wrong, I don't really care. All you have to do is look at my tally of results over the years, and they kind of speak for themselves. So naturally there will be people that have not had the success that I've had, and might want to talk it down, but that's OK."

obviously a lot of this is up to interpretation because we won't ever know, but this is how i read a lot of it. 2019 was a year that lewis became vocal in pushing back against critics - a big one being nico. 2020 was taken over by lewis' work with black lives matter and far, far more important topics in the paddock, so lewis spoke about nico's comments less. to me, 2019 was a bit of a final nail in the coffin for them because you can clearly see lewis' "wtf is this guy still talking about me?" moment and only recently are they back to being fine about each other, but i still couldn't imagine lewis getting photos with nico like in those 2017/18 ones, yknow.

nico clearly reflected on all this and that's why his media comments - still his full opinions - but he reflects on things much more from a drivers perspective now and thinks back to what media said about him when he was a driver. it's something that i very much respect about him as someone who also has a habit of being blunt/rude with tone even when i don't mean it necessarily. he didn't apologise to max, why would he, but he certainly changed how he approached it going into 2020, in my opinion. (you could say "well what about his comments about lando and mental health", but i think that's a different convo. nico sees a lot of himself in lando. why would the guy who spent years open about MH and saw a sports psychologist for over a decade speak poorly about someone else for it? anyway) nico's comments re max -

"Villeneuve is in the news in the paddock every single weekend, criticising individual drivers very harshly and not in a nice way. It's not necessarily a compliment from Verstappen towards me, to be the new Villeneuve." Addressing Verstappen's comment as part of Sky's F1 coverage at Monza, Rosberg stood by his claim that Verstappen was in the wrong at Spa because he had a broken car yet attacked Eau Rouge "flat out". "I would have backed off and been a bit careful and he was flat out, balls of steel and of course goes straight on and shunts," laughed Rosberg. "So I made that comment. He didn't like it too much."

it's clear that nico was very dramatic at times and lewis could be just as bad, but i think a lot of how people pick sides is revisionist history. nico has only been open about his mental health/struggles/personal details since retirement. from the start of his career he was seen as a pr robot and distant to the point journos didn't like putting up with him because they knew they wouldn't get much of a headline response. you can find a million articles/forum comments/posts about nico while he was racing about him having zero personality. when fans learn about brocedes now they get to hear more of nico's emotional side, which wasn't known at the time, and that's what led to the 'lewis was the wrong one' opinions. it's why people say "lewis made nico suicidal" (he absolutely did not and it's crazy that people say that)

still, you can see lewis at times being what we would see as him acting terrible to nico - i first think of all the times lewis repeated them not being actually friends and nico constantly like "idk why he said that :D we've known each other forever :D i know he would not talk badly about me :D" i think a lot of it can be read as what we, fans but people who have never experienced that level of high pressure sports, read as acting terrible vs what the two of them just see as the result of racing and the drive to beat your teammate. both of them could fight dirty with each other, but neither of them regret their actions even if it did cost their friendship. they both won at the end of the day and clearly happy.

"lewis is an angel" thing i think is also because of recent stuff - people saying nico is obsessed with lewis/bitter/holds resentment due to how nico speaks about him. no shit he speaks about lewis a lot, nico is a MASSIVE racing fan first and foremost, he is obviously going to speak about our greatest driver who he has a very unique relationship with. they both have said pretty rude shit to each other and nico is very blunt in his thoughts, which makes the whole 'bitter ex' thing which some people take as serious. i have seen people make comments about how nico is still obsessed and obviously bored of playing house because he mentions lewis still - CRAZY conclusion to jump to in my opinon. it's just mental that people pin blame on nico and act like he's trying to hide the mental games he played against lewis. he's VERY open about all of it lol. i'd say that nico is a pretty calculating person which is why he can be read as the "demon" for his actions in '14-16, but they both were!! they both did shit for the sake of winning!!

i know you aren't saying this but i'm just putting this here anyway because my brain is going - i don't like saying that lewis had a victim mentality simply because it's something that the press RAN with against lewis at the time - people now think lewis was nonchalant about brocedes, lewis was the one seen to be wearing his heart on his sleeve at the time! 'hamilton's victimhood' was a thing, but i think a lot of that is tied to racism and the old guard being uncomfortable with a black man winning. aka seb, mark, nico, fernando, literally whoever the fuck, could complain about stuff and it was listened to, but as soon as lewis did it was spun as him 'crying' about an issue. i don't see either of them as victims, just driven people determined to prove themselves, which is the interesting and correct story like you said.

like, okay, nico is the self admitted sensitive one in their friendship/in general, which IS more relatable. people who have gone through friendship breakups feel more connected to that than lewis' perspective, who was literally on top of the world and fully in his partyboy era in 2014-16 (also winning everything, my goat).

i think this makes people 1) whump nico to shit and greatly misinterpret him as a person and 2) demonise lewis (which can also be linked to an issue of racism in this community. different topic, not my place to comment fully on). brocedes also went through that weird patch in 2019, but now? 2026? neither nico, grown ass man who's clearly thriving and married to his childhood sweetheart with 2 kids, or lewis, 7x champion who has done more for this sport than anyone else and is the greatest in motorsports, is genuinely sat there pining over the other. a lot of the serious posts people make is a lot of projecting on to them, which is fine, i just think it's odd when people act like we know the ins and outs of their psychology.