Nico Rosberg warns Charles Leclerc of Lewis Hamilton's off-track shenanigans to gain advantage

Nico Rosberg has warned Charles Leclerc to be wary of Lewis Hamilton's off-track antics that could be used by the driver to sway the team more and more to his side. Rosberg has firsthand experience of being teammates with Hamilton, as the duo were together from 2013 to 2016.

Rosberg and Hamilton battled for the title from 2014 to 2016, where Lewis Hamilton won twice in 2014 and 2015, while Nico Rosberg won in 2016. In the four years of being teammates, Rosberg came up short thrice against Hamilton at Mercedes and hence knew what it meant to be the teammate of the 7x F1 champion.

It was, however, not the on-track stuff that Rosberg felt Charles Leclerc needed to be wary of, as in his view, the problem could be with the off-track shenanigans. Talking about what it meant to be Lewis Hamilton's teammate on the Sky Sports F1 podcast, Rosberg shared that Hamilton would do things to try and gain an advantage.

Pointing to an incident where the champion took the Daimler boss Dieter Zetsche to dinner, Rosberg said, via GPBlog:

"There is a lot of lobbying that you can do as a driver which would benefit you. That was one of Lewis's greatest strengths, and when I was fighting him at Mercedes, he was really good at building strong relationships with all the leadership at Mercedes. Suddenly, I would find out that: 'Oh, Lewis went for dinner in Stuttgart last night with Dieter Zetsche,' who was CEO of Daimler."

Lewis Hamilton might use those skills at Ferrari

Nico Rosberg warned that Lewis Hamilton would surely be using the same tactics at Ferrari, as one could always gain more influence within the team and tip the scales in your favor. While Charles Leclerc has been at the team since 2019, Hamilton's steps could start tipping the scales in his favor.

Rosberg said, via aforementioned source:

"That was like a dagger in the heart just to hear that, because who knows what they are talking about? He was very good at that. He will be using those skills now at Ferrari because it never hurts to get more and more support from the team."

Up until now, we've not seen any indication of Ferrari moving in either direction with the drivers, as both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc have had equal treatment. At the same time, we're still in the first year of this partnership, and things should evolve from this as the rivalry becomes more intense.

For now, Leclerc has had the edge on Hamilton in the first 13 races, but as the F1 legend gets more and more attuned with the car and the team, it would be interesting to see how it evolves.