Wehrlein wary of ‘annoying’ Mercedes over Rosberg vacancy

He stated, “I have chose to end my Formula One career”. “He dominated Nico Rosberg from karting to the ultimate in Formula 1 and when the German finally won his world championship, the strain was so great that he had to walk away from the sport”.

Mercedes team boss, Toto Wolff, who now faces the task of finding a suitable successor to Rosberg, said: “For the team this is an unexpected situation and an exciting one”.

Disenchanted at Ferrari, he would jump at the chance.

The Monaco-based German married his childhood sweetheart Vivian in 2014 and they had a daughter past year. As a German, he would suit Mercedes. That is, everyone except for his teammate, Lewis Hamilton.

The Brit caused controversy in the F1 season finale when he elected to slow Rosberg in to the chasing pack in the hope that other cars would overtake his rival and help his own championship cause. Hamilton would saunter to the title, Wehrlein his patsy. He has tested for Mercedes regularly and completed a significant amount of running on the new 2017 tyres with the team. Enduring a frugal spell at McLaren, though driving well.

In addition, 2017 brings a rule change that would make it more hard to for Mercedes to take their own, relatively inexperienced, development driver Pascal Wehrlein who was with Manor in 2016.

The likes of Pascal Wehrlein, Valtteri Bottas and Esteban Ocon, meanwhile, would offer potential for the future and be easier to secure.

His departure does surely raise an important question of – who will take his position in the Mercedes team. On the FIA ceremony in Vienna on Friday, Nico Rosberg goes to say, “Since 25 years in racing, it has been my dream, my “one thing” to become Formula One World Champion”.

“He’s a huge loss. and now we have to find a better man than Nico”, he said.

“We have the best auto to offer but at the moment no driver”.

“We started out when we were 13 and we would always talk about being champions and when I joined this team Nico was there – again, which was something we talked about when we were kids”, Rosberg’s Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton said.

Asked specifically whether Vettel was under consideration, Wolff added: “It’s not my intention to interfere with internal matters at Ferrari, and I don’t even know if Sebastian has a real desire to come to us”.