Nico Rosberg warns Kimi Antonelli of 'main' thing that could derail F1 title charge
Nico Rosberg has told Kimi Antonelli the 'main' thing that could stop him winning his maiden Drivers' Championship - and how he can avoid it happening.
Antonelli moved 81 points clear of Mercedes team-mate George Russell at the top of the standings by winning Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix. There are nine Grands Prix remaining in the 2026 season.
Rosberg - who won his only world title in 2016 ahead of Lewis Hamilton - has said that Antonelli need not worry about the drivers around him, but instead should focus on his own mind.
Nico Rosberg warns Kimi Antonelli about biggest F1 title threat
"The main one is just going to be his head," Rosberg said on the Sky Sports F1 podcast. "I know how my head started to play games with me when I was big favourite. That's the moment where it happens, when you're really the big favourite. Like he is now.
"It's almost like, 'Oh my God, this is actually mine for the taking. I better not mess this up. I better not make stupid mistakes, unnecessary mistakes, because the championship is there for the taking'. As soon as those kind of thoughts come in, you start to get that fear that you're going to mess something up completely unnecessarily.
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"It remains that driving an F1 car, and being at the front of the pack, is one of the hardest things in the world to do. It is so damn difficult to not make mistakes, and be there and qualify time and time again, do good laps, not put it in the wall. It's easy to make mistakes, because it's just so damn hard.
"Then your head starts to go, and it takes capacity away from your concentration to drive well. When I was going for my world championship, the last four races was when it really went crazy in my head. And there was no chance in the world for me to do a pole position or win another race, because I had like 30 per cent less capacity in my mind to drive well. Usually, it's 100 per cent to drive well, and now it was 70 per cent to drive well, and 30 per cent was absolutely terrified to make some stupid mistake and lose my opportunity to win the Formula 1 World Championship."
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What happened to Nico Rosberg when he faced the same title pressure?
Rosberg's comments offer a further insight into why he decided to step away from Formula 1 entirely after winning his only Drivers' Championship in 2016.
After his Mercedes team-mate Hamilton suffered an engine failure while leading in Malaysia, Rosberg went on to take third place and extend his lead at the top of the standings to 23 points with five races to go.
By winning the subsequent Japanese Grand Prix, Rosberg knew that if he finished second in all of the remaining four races, he would win the title regardless of what Hamilton did.
That was exactly what happened, with Hamilton winning all four of the final races ahead of second-placed Rosberg - despite his attempts to back up the field on the final lap of the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to try and create overtaking opportunities for those cars behind.
Rosberg would announce his retirement from Formula 1 the following week, though had already made his mind up before his final Grand Prix.
He told Men's Health in 2023: "I was afraid that if I had continued, I would not be fast enough. And then at some point there would be no team left that would want me. So I'd rather stop too early than too late. I wanted to be able to decide for myself."
Antonelli, of course, is in a much different position, with the 19-year-old to be crowned as F1's youngest-ever world champion - an accolade held by Sebastian Vettel, who was 23 when he won the 2010 title - if he can get across the line.
By winning the Spanish Grand Prix, the Italian overtook Lewis Hamilton in winning a higher percentage of races with his first team in F1. Hamilton drove for McLaren before joining Mercedes at the end of 2012.
Ryan Smart