what happened to nico and lewis in 2019?
the short answer is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
the long answer is that 2019 was a bit of an odd year for nico in general really, not just for his and lewis' relationship, which i probably could have written better in those tags lol +
anyway, to analyse people i don't know, i think lewis handled the retirement a bit better publicly than people assume. there's plenty of times in 2017/18 when they both talked about each other at events, lewis even defended nico's retirement at a fanzone in 2017. they were seen together fine at a few events and seemed to have that nice neutral relationship -
nico was far less involved with the paddock at that point, having a second daughter and whatnot. but by late 2018 and throughout 2019, he was VERY much doing his sky punditry work and his youtube stuff. the issue was nico was seen as shitstirring and almost clickbait-y with his work? he took a few snipes at lewis, seb, and max that season and most people saw this as nico not being able to accept he was now retired - like an old guy clinging on to his youth, pretty much. example -
ect, which now would be tolerated by part of the community, but there is still a large part who only see nico as a whiner and not able to move on due to how he acted at this time. it didn't help that nico took jabs at sebastian, and lewis defended seb multiple times in late 2018/2019 - example from late 2018, bearing in mind that nico is now part of that "media" which seb & lewis would push back against -
about max - nico did praise his abilities, but he called max a narcissist (lmao) and generally spoke about him too aggressive, etc, which caused max to snap back at the press during the summer. his full quote roughly translated from dutch is -
"I don't give a damn what he says on his channels anyway. I think he's the new Jacques Villeneuve. Villeneuve has changed quite a bit by now, but it seems as if Rosberg is now always trying to express a contrary opinion. Maybe he wants to attract viewers or something? He does it a lot. At the beginning of this year he called me a narcissist. That's very extreme. He's got no charisma, and he doesn't get to work anywhere. That is also his problem. Maybe he wants to make money with his Youtube channel. But he would have been better off driving on, then he could have made a lot more money."
yikes! a very harsh assessment, but i think it was a sentiment carried by both lewis and max (and seb? he never really spoke about it tbh) who were often at the end of nico's comments. nowadays, we know that the press don't really ask lewis to comment on nico's statements and lewis doesn't really speak about brocedes (except bahrain 2014 ofc). NOT the case at this time - nico was now back in the paddock, recording and criticising everything, and because he was so outspoken in his thoughts, these drivers were constantly being asked about their thoughts on whatever nico had said to media/youtube. part of me thinks that this soured lewis on nico in general and is a major reason why lewis still doesn't entertain nico. he hasn't really since that summer/autumn of 2019 - lewis wants to move past a lot of 2014-16, meanwhile 2019 nico was seen as even more of a bitter ex than he is currently. whatever good will was made in 2017/18 got taken away by the media (granted a lot of the times nico would say a very tiny comment and it would get blown up because it's nico who was saying it) and i don't know if we're only now getting it back?
anyway sir nonchalant lewis hamilton did have something to say about max's above comment. he posted this story -
and said to the media (x)
"I thought it [Verstappen's remark] was really funny. I think Max is generally a really funny guy so I was cracking up when I saw it. It's interesting because obviously we know what it's like, all the drivers have been here and know what it's like being criticised from the public, and when in the sport [they] moan about being criticised by people from the outside. "And then when drivers retire they become those critics, so it's an interesting dynamic. Unfortunately drivers become irrelevant when they retire and ultimate have to hang on to utilise other people's light to keep them in the light. But that's the way of sport, I guess."
also 2019 was this story made by lewis -
some say this was meant to be about paul di resta, but this was a pretty clear response to nico when he also said (x)
In his video blog before the Hungarian GP Rosberg suggested that Max Verstappen had overcome Hamilton to become "the best driver out there." The former world champion added that Hamilton had passed his peak in terms of pure ability, saying that "the best age for racing drivers is 30, 31, 32 – and that's because your ability as you're getting older slightly decreases, but experience counts so much in this sport. "So experience will outdo the small decrease in your natural ability as a human as you get a bit older." Told of Rosberg's suggestion that age was becoming a factor, Hamilton was unimpressed. "I've never seen the blog, I don't know who follows it, but it has no bearing on anything that I do," he said after his Hungarian GP win. "I don't care, everyone has their own opinion. Whether he's right or wrong, I don't really care. All you have to do is look at my tally of results over the years, and they kind of speak for themselves. So naturally there will be people that have not had the success that I've had, and might want to talk it down, but that's OK."
obviously a lot of this is up to interpretation because we won't ever know, but this is how i read a lot of it. 2019 was a year that lewis became vocal in pushing back against critics - a big one being nico. 2020 was taken over by lewis' work with black lives matter and far, far more important topics in the paddock, so lewis spoke about nico's comments less. to me, 2019 was a bit of a final nail in the coffin for them because you can clearly see lewis' "wtf is this guy still talking about me?" moment and only recently are they back to being fine about each other, but i still couldn't imagine lewis getting photos with nico like in those 2017/18 ones, yknow.
nico clearly reflected on all this and that's why his media comments - still his full opinions - but he reflects on things much more from a drivers perspective now and thinks back to what media said about him when he was a driver. it's something that i very much respect about him as someone who also has a habit of being blunt/rude with tone even when i don't mean it necessarily. he didn't apologise to max, why would he, but he certainly changed how he approached it going into 2020, in my opinion. (you could say "well what about his comments about lando and mental health", but i think that's a different convo. nico sees a lot of himself in lando. why would the guy who spent years open about MH and saw a sports psychologist for over a decade speak poorly about someone else for it? anyway) nico's comments re max -
"Villeneuve is in the news in the paddock every single weekend, criticising individual drivers very harshly and not in a nice way. It's not necessarily a compliment from Verstappen towards me, to be the new Villeneuve." Addressing Verstappen's comment as part of Sky's F1 coverage at Monza, Rosberg stood by his claim that Verstappen was in the wrong at Spa because he had a broken car yet attacked Eau Rouge "flat out". "I would have backed off and been a bit careful and he was flat out, balls of steel and of course goes straight on and shunts," laughed Rosberg. "So I made that comment. He didn't like it too much."
so. yeah! that's why i see 2019 as an odd year for them. thank you for asking, anon, always here to give my opinions on nico because he takes up too much space in my head already and it needs to go Somewhere. love that gossipy fella mostest.