Nico Rosberg sent a DM to “glass-half empty” Lando Norris
“I wrote a DM to Lando," Nico Rosberg explains
Nico Rosberg sent a message to Lando Norris and revealed how a sports psychologist helped his own career.
McLaren driver Norris was on pole position at last weekend’s F1 Italian Grand Prix but, after a first-lap battle with teammate Oscar Piastri, eventually left the door open for Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to win.
Norris has won his first two grands prix this season and is in a fight for the drivers’ championship, 62 points behind leader Max Verstappen.
But Natalie Pinkham assessed Norris on the Sky F1 podcast: “He is the first to say ‘I am not driving like a world champion should’. He is publicly self-critical.
“I feel that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if you say ‘I am weak and I make mistakes’, then you will make mistakes.
“You need to project the strongest sense of self, and buy into that.”
2016 F1 champion Rosberg replied: “A sports psychologist will tell you that you need to believe what you say.
“I wrote a DM to Lando, because I thought my experience might be interesting to him, because I’ve been through all that.
“For him, the glass is always half-empty rather than half-full.
“He is very authentic which is lovely. But you can be authentic and be half-full.
“The best example was his qualifying lap. Lando puts it on pole then focuses his post-qualifying talk on ‘I messed up my lap, I apologise to my team, I was down after Turn 1 and 2…’
“He could have said ‘most of the lap was perfect’. Both are the truth.
“But he decided to focus on his mistake and the bad part, not the rest which was world-class.
“I would hope and encourage that he thinks about that.
“His thoughts will remain half-empty. It’s the way he is, and it’s the way I am.
“You can have an impact if you adapt what you’re saying. If you consciously adapt what you say, you can have a positive spiral, which impacts your thoughts.”
The use of a sports psychologist aided Rosberg in taking the final step in his F1 journey by becoming champion in his final season.
“I worked with a sports psychologist for 10 years, and really intensified it in the last year,” he said.
“It was a lot of effort, two hours of coaching and learning every two days throughout the whole winter.
“It was more intense than the physical training.
“It was incredibly demanding but so worthwhile and valuable.
“Beyond sport, I learned so much and made so much progress.”
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
