Nico Rosberg joked that Sky F1’s Natalie Pinkham was “quite horrible” for bringing up “the worst” memory of his time as Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes team-mate.

Rosberg retired five days after being crowned World Champion in 2016, having prevailed against Hamilton in a tense season finale in Abu Dhabi.

Nico Rosberg given ‘horrible’ Lewis Hamilton reminder in McLaren discussion

The German’s success came after two punishing defeats to his Mercedes team-mate in 2014/15, with Hamilton claiming 21 race victories compared to Rosberg’s 11 across the first two seasons of F1’s V6-hybrid era.

A new inter-team rivalry currently appears to be brewing at McLaren, where the relationship between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri has become more intense now the pair are competing for regular victories.

Norris threatened to defy McLaren team orders during July’s Hungarian Grand Prix, only following the team’s requests to swap positions with Piastri in the closing stages as the Australian collected his maiden victory.

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Piastri went on to launch an aggressive overtake around the outside of Norris at the start of last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.

The move was considered to be within the framework of McLaren’s so-called ‘papaya rules’, under which Norris and Piastri are free to race as long as they do not make contact.

McLaren opted against enforcing strict team orders at Monza even though Norris’s title rival Max Verstappen started a distant seventh, with the pair now separated 62 points with eight races remaining.

Team principal Andrea Stella hinted McLaren may reassess their rules of engagement from next weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, telling media including PlanetF1.com that the team “want to give it a go” and try to secure the Drivers’ Championship with Norris.

Appearing on the Sky F1 podcast, Rosberg believes it would be “a hard ask” to convince Piastri to potentially give up victories to assist his team-mate’s title charge without a contractual obligation to support Norris.

He said: “It’s hard on Oscar, because in his contract Oscar will have a number-one contract. It won’t say in his contract that [he needs] to help Lando.

“And Oscar is driving brilliantly also, so he actually deserves every opportunity, from his point of view, to get race wins.

“Plus, let’s also remember mathematically he can still be World Champion. There’s also that.

“He’s not that far behind Lando. He’s [44 points] behind Lando, so he’s not that far behind [Verstappen] either.

“So it’s a hard ask on Oscar to start forfeiting race wins potentially.

Referring to Rosberg’s own experience alongside Hamilton at Mercedes, Pinkham laughed: “Absolutely, you don’t want to see your team-mate win a World Championship in a car that you knew you could potentially have won it in as well. That’s got to be the worst.

Rosberg replied: “Yes, Natalie, that is the worst. [That was] actually quite horrible, Natalie.”

Rosberg’s comments come after Martin Brundle claimed Piastri does not care about Norris’s title hopes.

And he argued that Piastri may not have swapped positions with his team-mate in Hungary had their positions been reversed, suggesting the Australian has a more uncompromising attitude than Norris.

Writing in his post-race Sky F1 column, Brundle said: “Piastri clearly has no interest in Norris’ World Championship chances against Max Verstappen, which we’d already witnessed in Hungary when he firmly seized the lead in the first corner.

“The racer in me admires this attitude. That’s why Piastri won championships and ended up in a race-winning F1 car.

“The last thing which will excite him is Norris becoming World Champion in the same car.

“That doesn’t mean he won’t help out at some point, and indeed that he hasn’t helped out here and there already, but that racer’s mentality and killer instinct is all important.

“I remember saying in commentary in Hungary, if the roles had been reversed, would Piastri have handed Norris the lead back, and I really don’t know the answer.

“I do know that many ruthless and selfish World Champions I’ve raced against wouldn’t have.”

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