2016 Formula 1 World Champion Nico Rosberg has revealed what actually happens to the championship trophy that the winner is awarded with at the end of season FIA gala, with it not being “cool”.
Rosberg defeated Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton to the title in 2016 before retiring, something he announced a matter of hours after being crowned as World Champion in Abu Dhabi.
Interestingly, Rosberg only kept the trophy for a year, with it then being handed on to the next World Champion.
In Rosberg’s case, this meant he had to hand the championship trophy over to Hamilton, who claimed his fourth title in 2017.
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The German revealed how he got the trophy to Hamilton when asked if he got to keep the magnificent piece of silverware, whilst working for Sky at last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.
“No, you have to give the World Championship back!” Rosberg told Sky Sports F1.
“You only get to keep it for a year. I had to give it to Lewis.
“No, I had someone pick it up from my house, put it in a boot and drive it to Lewis’ home.”
Rosberg admitted: “That was not cool.”
Remarkably, Rosberg revealed that the only trophy he was allowed to keep was from his first victory at the Monaco Grand Prix, back in 2013.
Rosberg is a three-time Monaco GP winner yet only has the trophy from his first win at the Circuit de Monaco, with him not even having any replicas.
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Based on the information about the world championship trophy, it likely means that Hamilton was forced to hand the trophy over to Max Verstappen at the end of 2021.
Verstappen, of course, overtook Hamilton on the final lap of the 2021 season finale to become a World Champion, with former race director Michael Masi having later been investigated by the FIA for making a ‘human error’.
With Verstappen having then won a second consecutive title in 2022, he wasn’t required to hand it to another driver, with him likely set to keep the trophy for yet another year given that he leads the Drivers’ Championship by 53 points.