Nico Rosberg says F1 world champion Lando Norris needs to stop being so ‘nice’ when he’s racing Max Verstappen.
Over the last couple of years, a rivalry has grown between Norris and Verstappen due to their key roles in the F1 title race.
Norris came out on top in 2025, beating Verstappen by two points, but in 2024, Verstappen held off Norris to win the championship.
The Red Bull driver was handed a penalty for that incident, and Norris found himself on the receiving end of some questionable defending throughout the year.
Later in the season, Norris picked up a penalty in the US for overtaking Verstappen outside track limits. The following week in Mexico, Verstappen received a 20-second time penalty after two separate incidents involving Norris within just a few corners.
While some believe Norris hasn’t been aggressive enough when challenging Verstappen, he’s also faced more than his share of controversial defensive moves from the Red Bull driver.
Norris needs to ’cause a crash’ with Verstappen
Rosberg sees parallels between his own career and what Norris is experiencing now. When he was battling Hamilton for titles, he had to adapt and become more aggressive. He feels that for Verstappen to respect him more on track, it might take an incident where neither driver backs down.
“I had to push and be tougher sometimes, even though it didn’t come naturally to me”, he said on the High Performance Podcast. “Again, you have the same example with Lando. Generally, people will say he’s just too nice.
“In wheel-to-wheel battle, he has always lost against Max in the last few years. Every wheel-to-wheel battle against Max, he lost out.
“What Lando needs to do once is just hold his ground, cause a crash, and that will send a message to Max: ‘he’s changing, he’s becoming more ferocious, maybe I need to calm it down a bit next time against him’.”
Verstappen has always respected Leclerc’s wheel-to-wheel racing because they grew up racing each other in karting. Even Hamilton has sometimes given way too easily – not all the time though because they’ve crashed quite often.”
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