Nico Rosberg claims that he walked away from potentially earning $100m when he chose to retire from F1. The German driver surprised many when he suddenly gave up his racing career at the end of 2016 after winning his one and only Formula 1 World Championship. Since then Rosberg has pursued many other ventures and has no regrets about his decision, even in regards to the huge amount of money he could have made if he had continued. "I wanted to avoid going out as a has-been or someone who is not wanted anymore," Rosberg told The Times Magazine. "I mean, there was $100m on the table that I gave up on. "I longed for a different kind of life. You don’t have flexibility when you’re racing. It was the best decision for my family – I didn’t think about the money for one second." Rosberg's pursuits since leaving the sport including being a TV pundit for Sky Sports F1 and running his own team in the Extreme E series, where incidentally his former Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton is also a team owner. The relationship between Rosberg and Hamilton became famously bitter during their time as teammates, despite having been friends during their earlier karting careers. When the interviewer made a comparison between their situation and that of two songwriters who fall out after working together for a long time, Rosberg explained: "But that’s why they break up eventually, because there is so much at stake. "And they start fighting more and more and they eventually break up because there’s so much money at stake, so much recognition at stake." Rosberg's feud with Hamilton might be in the past now but he can still recall how the rivalry divided fans. "There were the two camps, the Nico camp and the Hamilton fans," the 36-year-old said. "And all the Hamilton fans were against me, of course. "[Once], there were these four-year-old girls right in front of me with their dads, and they were booing me and giving me the thumbs down. Their dads told them I was bad and that they needed to boo me."
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