How different would F1 look if Nico Rosberg had raced as long as Lewis Hamilton?

Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari is pictured alongside Nico Rosberg of Mercedes — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 Legends

How different would F1 look if Nico Rosberg had raced as long as Lewis Hamilton?

Nico Rosberg retired from F1 in 2016, but what if he didn't?

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Saturday 10 January 2026 10:56

Seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton's 41st birthday earlier this week got us thinking here at GPFans, about what F1 would look like if another man a similar age to Hamilton was still racing in the sport.

Nico Rosberg is actually younger than Hamilton, not 41 until June, but he has been out of the sport for 10 years this year, with his 2016 world championship victory his final season.

Rosberg shocked the world of sport when he announced in the immediate aftermath of that title win that he would retire from the sport, leaving even Mercedes stunned as they scrambled around for a replacement for the 2017 season that was starting less than four months later.

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That replacement, of course, was Valtteri Bottas, who never properly provided a threat to Hamilton in any of the Brit's four consecutive championship wins between 2017-2020.

But would Rosberg have performed any differently? Or was Hamilton just so stung by his 2016 defeat that he would've beaten anybody in the succeeding years, more determined than ever and right in his prime at the age of 32?

It's a real shame that we never found out how Rosberg would perform after his championship win, with the German also right in his prime when he retired at the age of just 31.

Would Hamilton and Rosberg still be team-mates?

With their similar age and the fact that they raced in junior categories against one another at a similar time, Hamilton and Rosberg were good friends, particularly in their early days as team-mates.

Hamilton joined Mercedes in 2013 and Rosberg had at that stage been there for three full seasons alongside another seven-time champion in Michael Schumacher.

Everything seemed to be rosy at Mercedes, with the team clearly growing together and becoming more of a threat to the top teams, with Rosberg claiming two victories in that year and Hamilton one.

But as the team became the sport's dominant outfit following the 2014 regulation changes, Hamilton and Rosberg's relationship deteriorated as they became fierce championship rivals.

Hamilton won the title in 2014 and 2015, before the blockbuster 2016 season really saw the cracks in their relationship open up, to the detriment of the Mercedes team. Mercedes ended up scoring zero points in Spain when their two drivers crashed into each other, while Hamilton's tactics at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix were not exactly done with the team in mind.

That leaves the question as to how much longer Mercedes would have wanted the pair alongside each other if Rosberg hadn't have retired.

As the hybrid era went on and car performance converged - highlighted by Ferrari's five wins in 2017 and six in 2018 - it became more crucial for Mercedes to score highly in order to stay top of the constructors' championship.

And the Hamilton and Bottas partnership allowed them to do just that, with the pair rarely fighting over race wins, and Bottas being consistent in his ability to get himself onto the podium.

It's possible that Rosberg would have got frustrated at not having the number one driver status in the team despite being a world champion, too, and might have opted for a Daniel Ricciardo-style switch to a different team to try and head up their fight against Mercedes and Ferrari.

It's highly unlikely that 10 years later they would both still make up Mercedes' driver lineup, particularly given the fact that even Hamilton has now moved away from the team with whom he was so successful.

How many world championships would Rosberg have won?

This is impossible to say. But we can of course speculate.

There's no doubt that Rosberg's 2016 championship was well deserved, but Hamilton did have some bad luck throughout the season, including at Malaysia when his highly reliable Mercedes engine blew when he was cruising to Malaysian GP success. That represented a 15-point swing in the championship with Rosberg finishing third.

It was this bad luck that led to Hamilton's "I wouldn't say that" response following the 2016 Abu Dhabi GP when he was asked whether it was a case of the better driver won in the end. That quote was while he was congratulating Rosberg for the title, and made it quite clear that he felt like he deserved the championship more.

Nevertheless, during that season, Rosberg was imperious, claiming nine race victories. It would have been interesting to see whether Rosberg would have been able to stave off the threat of Hamilton and a reinvigorated Vettel in 2017. I think it would have been an exciting three-way title battle, but one in which Rosberg would have arguably finished third.

Whether Rosberg would have won another championship or not would have likely been dependent on his next career choice. After realising that he was unable to defeat Hamilton again, Rosberg would opt to move to another team, maybe even Red Bull for the 2019 season after Ricciardo had opted to leave?

Even then, Rosberg would have found it hard to beat Max Verstappen, but he would have had a great chance of more success from the 2021 season onwards when Red Bull began their domination over the rest of the field.

Would Hamilton be a seven-time world champion?

I think no matter what, nothing would have stopped Hamilton from winning his championships in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

He was head and shoulders above the rest of the grid in terms of performance during those years, and could smell a few all-time records.

Rosberg potentially would have won a few more races than Bottas did during this period, but I can't see a world in which the German would have beaten Hamilton again.

The Brit was stung by his 2016 defeat, and had the bit between his teeth as he sought to make the most of Mercedes' dominant period.

Written by

Sam Cook - Digital Journalist

Sam Cook is a talented young sports journalist and social media professional who now specialises in Formula 1, having previously worked as a football journalist and a local news reporter for a variety of different brands.

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F1 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari Mercedes Nico Rosberg