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New Champion Nico Rosberg Announces His Immediate Retirement

By Brittany Frederick

Oct 22, 2016; Austin, TX, USA; Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg (6) of Germany is interviewed after qualifying for the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Rosberg will start in second. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 22, 2016; Austin, TX, USA; Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg (6) of Germany is interviewed after qualifying for the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Rosberg will start in second. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports /
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Just after achieving his goal of winning the Formula One world championship, Nico Rosberg has announced his retirement – and left a huge vacancy to fill.

Nico Rosberg won’t be defending his newly earned Formula One world championship; instead the Mercedes driver announced Friday that he’s retiring from the sport to spend more time with his family.

Rosberg has been champion for less than a week, after beating teammate Lewis Hamilton in the 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Nov. 27. But there’s something to be said for going out on top and that’s what Rosberg decided to do ahead of the FIA’s Prize Giving ceremony in Austria.

His choice promptly created buzz throughout the F1 world, not only for him but because the league suddenly went from having only a handful of open race seats left to dealing with a vacancy in the top organization on the grid.

So what prompted the incumbent champion’s decision? And how big is the ripple effect going to be?

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Mercedes posted the full text of Rosberg’s lengthy retirement statement on its website, but one aspect that fans will likely be interested to know that his decision to step away has been brewing for awhile:

"When I won the race in Suzuka, from the moment when the destiny of the title was in my own hands, the big pressure started and I began to think about ending my racing career if I became World Champion."

Rosberg goes on to say that he made his choice on Nov. 28 following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and informed his managers as well as Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, who was supportive and issued his own statement complimentary of Rosberg on Friday:

"This is a brave decision by Nico and a testament to the strength of his character. He has chosen to leave at the pinnacle of his career, as World Champion, having achieved his childhood dream. The clarity of his judgment meant I accepted his decision straight away when he told me."

The actual fact that Rosberg elected to retire is not a massive shock. Many athletes have elected to call it quits after winning a title and thus achieving what their entire careers are thought to be for.

Especially in this particular case, after losing the F1 World Championship twice to teammate Lewis Hamilton, you can completely understand that Rosberg has finally planted the flag and thus there’s no reason he needs to do anything other than spend time with the family that’s been there as he’s pushed himself to the top of the mountain.

The real surprise is what his departure will do to the league’s free agency market. There are a few other drivers still out there scrambling for seats, including but not limited to Pascal Wehrlein, Felipe Nasr, and Esteban Gutierrez. Now they go from hoping to land the second seat at Sauber or a place at Manor to eyeing up being part of the Mercedes behemoth that dominated the 2016 Formula One season.

Already jokes about the campaign for that seat have already begun hitting social media, with the Mercedes official Twitter account getting in on the game:

The 2017 Australian Grand Prix is scheduled for Mar. 27, so Mercedes have just over three months to fill the now-open race seat and one imagines they’ll have their pick of drivers even this late in the game. It’s not going to be a question of if they can find a replacement for Nico Rosberg – it’s going to be finding the right replacement for Nico Rosberg.

Obviously Mercedes won’t want to throw just anyone into their organization; they’ll be looking for an elite level candidate. So, too, would it behoove them to find someone who can work amicably with Hamilton after very public discord between Hamilton and Rosberg that seemed to come to a head in Abu Dhabi with the now-infamous “team orders” incident.

Locating a driver of Mercedes caliber won’t be easy regardless but this is an opportunity for the team to turn a page off-track as well, and chemistry isn’t something that can be figured out on paper.

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Wherever Mercedes goes next, Formula One fans should also take a moment to applaud Nico Rosberg for a career well done. Aside from being the 2016 drivers’ champion, he walks away with 23 wins and 57 podiums over 206 starts in a decade of racing. And it’s hard to imagine a better note to have ended on.

What do you think of Nico Rosberg’s decision to retire from Formula One?

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