The final laps in Qatar had barely cooled when Nico Rosberg stepped in front of the cameras and delivered what many are already calling the most explosive interview of the 2025 season.
Speaking with the calm authority of a world champion who no longer has anything to lose, the German tore into the current title fight with surgical precision.
Rosberg began by stating plainly that Lando Norris has no moral right to the 2025 drivers’ crown.
His reasoning was brutal in its simplicity: McLaren’s power unit, he claimed, has been operating outside the technical regulations for the majority of the season, delivering illegal performance that the FIA has chosen to ignore.
He explained that telemetry shared privately among rival engineers shows consistent breaches in fuel-flow limits, ignition timing, and energy-recovery deployment patterns. These are not small advantages; Rosberg described them as the difference between fighting for victory and merely hoping for a podium.
The 2016 champion accused the governing body of deliberate inaction, pointing out that identical or even smaller discrepancies triggered immediate disqualifications and grid penalties for other teams in the past. McLaren, however has faced nothing more than polite questions and vague promises of future monitoring.
Rosberg painted a picture of selective justice, where the size of a team’s social-media following and its nationality appear to influence regulatory toughness. He reminded viewers how Red Bull was dragged through years of microscopic floor and wing examinations while McLaren’s alleged offences vanish into silence.
He argued that Formula 1 cannot claim to crown the best driver if the fastest car is allowed to cheat. A championship decided by regulatory favouritism rather than pure speed and skill would carry an asterisk for eternity, forever diminishing whoever lifts the trophy.
Turning to Max Verstappen, Rosberg’s tone changed completely. He described the Dutchman as the last remaining beacon of what a true world champion should be: a driver who wins through talent, adaptability, and unbreakable mental strength despite having every possible obstacle placed in his path.
Verstappen’s Red Bull, Rosberg stressed, is no longer the dominant force it once was. Key designers have left, the budget cap bites harder every race, and rumours of internal power struggles swirl constantly. Yet the three-time champion keeps producing miracles weekend after weekend.
The Qatar weekend offered the perfect example. Starting well outside the top five after a difficult qualifying, Verstappen managed his tyres with almost supernatural precision, stayed out longer than anyone thought possible, and struck at exactly the moment McLaren’s strategy unravelled under the late safety car.
Rosberg highlighted the cruel irony: while Norris enjoys perfect team harmony, unlimited upgrades, and (according to him) an illegal power advantage, Verstappen fights alone against a car that is sliding backwards and a team that sometimes seems more focused on politics than performance.
He revealed that several respected figures inside the paddock privately admit they have never seen a driver carry a team so completely since Michael Schumacher in the early 1990s. Verstappen’s ability to remain ice-cool while everything around him burns is, Rosberg said, the very definition of championship material.
The German saved his strongest warning for the FIA. If McLaren is allowed to keep its illegal performance all the way to Abu Dhabi and Norris takes the title by even a single point, the damage to Formula 1’s reputation will be catastrophic and irreversible.
He demanded immediate, on behalf of every fan who believes in fair play, that the governing body finally open a proper, transparent investigation and apply whatever penalties are required, even if that means rewriting the championship standings with only one race remaining.
Rosberg acknowledged the commercial pressure to keep the title fight alive until the final lap in Abu Dhabi, but insisted that television ratings can never justify compromising sporting integrity. The moment money matters more than fairness, he said, Formula 1 stops being a sport and becomes theatre.
As the teams prepare for the Yas Marina showdown, Rosberg offered his final prediction with absolute certainty: Max Verstappen will silence every doubter one more time.
Driving a legal car, relying only on his own genius, he will overcome whatever gap remains and claim a fourth consecutive world championship the old-fashioned way, through sheer, undeniable brilliance.
When the chequered flag falls in Abu Dhabi, Rosberg concluded, the driver standing on the top step will not be the one with the fastest engine or the most lenient stewards. It will be the driver who proved, beyond any argument, that he is simply the best in the world.
And in 2025, that driver can only be Max Verstappen.
When the chequered flag falls in Abu Dhabi, Rosberg concluded, the driver standing on the top step will not be the one with the fastest engine or the most lenient stewards. It will be the driver who proved, beyond any argument, that he is simply the best in the world.
And in 2025, that driver can only be Max Verstappen.
