GPI Nico Rosberg 2016 World Champion | Page 10

THE WORLD CHAMPION

Everybody who ’ s supporting me in the world gave me strength . It ’ s all the people watching on TV who support me , all the people who come to the races , even this weekend , a lot of Germans out there and from the whole world , supporting me through the whole weekend . That ’ s really , really special . It ’ s a special feeling , a very unique feeling . I ’ m very thankful to all of them . And then of course the people closer to me . It ’ s my whole team , which is my racing family . I joined Mercedes in 2010 and it was a rough ride initially and now it ’ s come good in the last years and now it ’ s come good for me today – and that ’ s very , very special also . So , big thanks to my racing family , to Mercedes , to my family , to all of my team around me , working around me . Everybody has there part in this . It ’ s such a long way to get to today , really . My go-karting engineer from when I was ten was writing me last night , memories from ten years old , fighting for the French championship , stories of motivation he was sending me yesterday , so it ’ s just all the way from there , every year it builds up to this success today . Even all those people through my career . I had a lot of important mentors in that sense . All the way through . If this is the moment to mention them , I will . It ’ s Serge Dino in go-karting , then in cars it was Team Rosberg and Peter Sieber and Erich Baumgärtner in Formula 3 . Arno Zensen , Team Rosberg . After that came GP2 where it ’ s Nicolas Todt , Fred Vasseur , big thanks to them for getting me into F1 , and Steve Marcel who unfortunately passed away . After that F1 , Williams , Frank Williams , Sam Michael , Patrick Head , to get me into F1 . And after that , what come after that ? The people that took me to Mercedes , that was Norbert Haug and Ross Brawn , Nick Fry , thanks to all of you to get me into Mercedes . That was the beginning of the story , and then of course Toto , massive thanks to Toto and Paddy and Niki for continuing it on and taking me to where I am today .