Nico Rosberg believes the friendship between Sebastian Vettel and Mick Schumacher would quickly dissolve if the pair were driving competitive cars and fighting for top positions in F1.
Vettel has acted a mentor of sorts to Schumacher with whom he shares a special relationship, just as the four-time world champion enjoyed with Mick's legendary father, Michael Schumacher, during his own early years in F1.
Vettel and Schumacher frequently talk and the Aston Martin driver often checks on the Haas charger after a race in parc fermé. And Vettel was among the first to congratulate Schumacher after the latter had scored his first career points in F1 at Silverstone earlier this month.
But in Miami back in May, Vettel and Schumacher were squabbling for ninth place in the closing stages of the race when the pair collided following an over-confident move by the Haas driver.
After the race, Vettel described the collision as "stupid for both of us". But Rosberg believes Vettel would have been a lot less amicable with Schumacher had the two been fighting in the race for an outright win.
"There can be no friendship when you’re fighting one-on-one for every victory and title," Rosberg told Eurosport. "I don’t think that’s possible.
"There’s so much at stake, it doesn’t work in the long run. But Mick and Sebastian are not rivals for first places.
"Mick crashed into Sebastian in Miami. If it had been about first place, Vettel would have been in a completely different mood after the race.
"But it was about the places in the midfield, so you can overlook that. It’s incredibly nice that Sebastian supports his buddy Mick so much."
After a difficult start to his 2022 campaign, marked but a series of high-profile mistakes and costly crashes, Schumacher has raced impeccably in the last three events and scored consecutive points in Britain and in Austria.
Rosberg for one is delighted with the timely turnaround executed by the 23-year-old.
"Mick has had difficult weeks, so we’re all delighted that he’s now made a nice breakthrough," commented the 2016 F1 World Champion.
"Formula 1 is fast-moving. He had to take a lot of criticism. When I open the newspapers these days, I don’t read any criticism about him at all.
"It only took one race, an eighth-place finish [at the British Grand Prix], a great duel with [Max] Verstappen in Great Britain and everything is forgotten again.
"That’s the crazy thing about our sport, but also the nice thing for Mick. Psychologically, that’s incredibly valuable for him because he’s now finding a positive mental spiral.
"That carries him and that helps him in the coming races."
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