Rosberg Makes Brutal Hamilton 'Legacy' Claim After Disastrous Ferrari Season

Nico Rosberg has made a bold claim about Lewis Hamilton's legacy after the Ferrari star suffered yet more misery at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Hamilton has had a nightmare debut Formula 1 season at Ferrari following his high-profile move from Mercedes.

And his disastrous campaign with Ferrari was compounded when he suffered a heavy crash in the final practice session before being eliminated from Q1 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Speaking in the media pen after qualifying, the seven-time F1 champion said: "I don't have the words to describe how I feel inside. An unbearable amount of anger and rage. Yeah, not really much I can say about it."

Naturally, Hamilton's showing on Saturday was a hot topic of discussion among the Sky Sports F1 team, including ex-teammate Rosberg, who couldn't believe what he saw at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

"It's unbelievable isn't it? It just gets worse and worse and worse," he explained.

"Anthony Davidson did a really nice analysis, that it was probably Lewis going a little too wide on the entry of the kerb, trying to open his line up as much as possible and taking it a bit too far.

"So perhaps a little bit of driver error in there. It didn't look like anything broke, but you never know, they need to analyse that now."

Lewis Hamilton cuts a dejected figure at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Image: Getty

Rosberg, who was teammates with Hamilton for four years at Mercedes, also claimed the Briton's struggles at Ferrari are putting a 'scratch' on his legacy.

"It’s been a terrible season for him and it’s not a worthy way to kind of end his career," the German, who won the F1 championship in 2016, added.

"It’s so hard for him to deal with that. He’s been beaten by his teammate, he’s struggling to get into Q2 most of the time, he’s spinning on his own. It doesn’t get worse than that so it’s a real nightmare.

"I think it’s even worse than it looks from the outside for him personally. He’s the greatest and we’re never going to debate that anymore, but still it’s putting a little scratch on his legacy as well now. It’s just really not nice."