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news
Nico Rosberg (licensed CC BY SA 2.0 by Mark McArdle).jpgNico Rosberg says giving up cycling helped make him Formula 1 world champion
Nico Rosberg has claimed that s decision to give up cycling was directly responsible for his winning the Formula 1 world championship last year.
The 32-year-old, who has dual German and Finnish citizenship, said that deciding midway through the season helped him save weight, reports MotorSport Week,
Rosberg insisted that his decision also messed with the head of his rival and Mercedes AMG Petronas team mate, Lewis Hamilton at a crucial point in the season.
"Every single detail counts,” he explained. “In the summer break last year I decided to stop cycling because the leg muscles are among the heaviest things on your body.
“I lost 1kg as a result that August. We came back, and three races later it was the Japanese Grand Prix."
Rosberg qualified in pole position for that race ahead of Hamilton by just 0.01 of a second and is adamant that it was deciding to forgo riding his bike that made the difference.
"One kilo of body weight is 0.04 of a second per lap when the car is at the weight limit,” he explained.
“My smaller leg muscles got me on pole, and that messed with Lewis's head, so he messed up the start.
“I finished first, he finished third, and I had the points lead that I needed to be able to cruise home with second places."
Rosberg retired from Formula 1 just five days after the end of his championship-winning season and revealed that he made the decision on the starting grid of what proved to be his final race, in Abu Dhabi.
"I was trying to apply all my meditation skills, but nothing worked.,” he said.
“What worked was the realisation that this might be my last race.
“I was like, 'Oh damn, okay, let's go and enjoy the driving -- it might be the last time!' That clarified all the stress," he added.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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25 comments
What a load of shit. Isn't there a minimum weight limit in F1? Or have they messed with that rule along with everything else?
He wouldn't have been close to Hamilton this season though.
Hamilton too busy saving the £3million VAT on his private plane to worry about riding a bike
Rosberg rather ran away and hid after winning his prize, it was just bizarre for him to walk away whilst Räikkönen won't let go of the steering wheel and is hogging a good seat whilst he can't even win a Quality Street toffee penny. I really hope the Red Bull gets a bit better or Verstappen has an opt out for 2019.
Sorry - Bikes, bike, bike bikes, bikes.
I don't think its any massive coincidence that my interest in F1 waned about the time I started riding again.
Let's face it, going out and riding your bike is infinitley more fun than watching the tedious droning round of cars in a procession. Even trying to sit down and watch it afterwards isn't even as interesting as *gasp* watching a grand tour stage.
As far as F1 goes, I'm out. And am likely to stay that way to be honest.
TL;DR; Tedious drivers. Tedious sport (these days).
What a coincidence! I recently decided to abandon all hope of an F1 career and focus on my cycling.
Not sure if this is what he's telling himself to justify that he got a little bit lucky last year, yes he had to be in a position to capitalise on Hamilton's misfortune, but he didn't exactly run away with it.
I don't know what kind of cycling he was doing, but surely if he was mostly doing endurance style work rather than trying to become a track sprinter then he'd be better of just laying off the leg press machine in the gym as the cycling would help keep the over all body muscle mass down no?
Awavey, nice to see a comment from someone who has more than a passing understadning of what they're commenting on.
not interested in what a plastic 'champion' comes out with, move along.
It does not make sense!
He can cut his legs off, but still there is a combined minimal weight that they cannot go below.
Either he is talking out of his arse or road.cc has misunderstood something.
"In F1 the minimum weight permissible is 728 kg (1,605 lb) including the driver"
His head weighs a fair bit. Even more so now.
Exactly what I thought. Drivers are weighed and cars are weighed each race. I'm sure there's some wiggle room/margin of error permissible since every team is probably on the limit, but it doesn't make sense.
Also, stopping cycling won't deform muscle mass within weeks. It takes months. He would have saved more weight just being slightly more dehydrated and dropping water weight.
so the teams build cars to the lowest weight possible they can and even combined with the drivers weight, they should be under the weight limit, so they use ballast to bring it upto the minimum, how much ballast you can use and where you place it, greatly impacts the performance of the car, because weight in the driver impacts the centre of gravity of the car, and you want the lowest centre of gravity possible.
now the recent rules on engines, have greatly restricted the amount of leeway teams had on ballast, as chunks of their "spare weight" were taken up by the new engine technology, so the only way to get back to having more weight as "performance" ballast, is the driver has to lose weight to compensate
and a driver who weighs in at 74kg, is at a real disadvantage to a driver who is only 68kg, or even 59kgs, thats kilos of ballast they lose out on being able to move around the car, which as Nico says is going to be a time advantage in a sport measured in thousandths of a second the difference between starting on pole against 2nd, could determine who wins the race, because of strategy calls and so on, and who wins the race could determine who wins the championship
so its definitely altered how the drivers now go about maintaining fitness, as they dont want to gain unecessary muscle mass as weight in the gym, or even riding a bike, and try and shed as much body weight as they can, whilst still being fit enough to drive these cars.
but there are serious concerns about how this approach towards forcing weight loss on the drivers, could ultimately push a driver struggling to lose weight towards either banned weight loss drugs,or end up at an unhealthy weight that at some races where dehydration becomes a real issue actually could potentially end with them feinting behind the wheel of a car doing 200mph, because race weekends they could be basically starving themselves just to keep their weight down.
Exactly what I thought. Drivers are weighed and cars are weighed each race. I'm sure there's some wiggle room/margin of error permissible since every team is probably on the limit, but it doesn't make sense. Also, stopping cycling won't deform muscle mass within weeks. It takes months. He would have saved more weight just being slightly more dehydrated and dropping water weight.[/quote]
Muscled stored glycogen innit? Pprolonged cycling can cause an increase in the amount of Glycogen stored in the muscles, and as glycogen I believe is stored with water, it can be relatively heavy.
Certainly post off-season (~4 weeks) I will have put no more than 1 or 2 kgs in weight. However when getting back on the bike, I'll gain a further 2-3 kg as muscles and muscle stored glycogen get back up to speed.
Total weight doesn't tell the whole story. Weight distribution and centre of gravity are also important. Unfortunately for Nico, being the second driver and being heavier than Lewis, the excess mass is relatively high and far forward, he has less mass to freely distribute and balance the car, and the team are unlikely to fundamentally change the car design to mitigate that.
Still, he might just be talking nonsense.
True marginal gains. Sky should take note.
Everything else aside, F1 merchandising is impressively shite isn't it? I saw a guy in the supermarket today in a McLaren Nylon "pit shirt" creation that just reaked of tasteless latent skin condition static electric day-glo trimmed tension. And their baseball caps are always on the "Wyoming combine driver" side of the crap fence. And £50+
Whereas, cycling gear is always subtle and jam-packed full of refined taste, obviously.
"I was trying to apply all my meditation skills, but nothing worked.,” he said.
He obviously didn't try the hanging your used tea bags on the washing line, this is proven to work and if you're a budding F1 world champ I'll pass on the details ( for a small sum obvs).
Gave up cycling, gave up F1 - basically, he's just a lazy quitter, isn't he?
Guys, I read this as a Good News story. Some bloke gets to retire at 32 so he can ride his bike again. I have found a new hero.
Bollix. Till he drives a penny fathing style F1 jaloppy he's nothing but a young uppity n'er do well. Actually, a quickish tractor would be a start...
Or maybe Lewis Hamilton just got bored and lost focus.
You really think Hamilton had a Focus?
Must have been the rather sportier 1.6 with the alloys I would guess.
Quite a lot of people that don't cycle drive like they are F1 champions.
There you are then. Stop cycling and get leaner and fitter.
i am gonna sell my bikes