3 replies to this topic

[fareleiro]

I've heard that Keke Rosberg's relationship with Mclaren staff wasn't the best. He really did a great job and spectacular performances until 1985, but with Mclaren he just faded away until he finnaly decided to quit F1...
Does anyone knowns what really happened?

[midgrid]

In short, the McLaren MP4/2 (in its third season of competition, designated "C") had a tendency to understeer, as was favoured by Niki Lauda and Alain Prost, who had won the previous two championships in it. Rosberg much preferred oversteer and found the car hard to drive anywhere near Prost's pace, but it took him quite a long time to persuade John Barnard et al to listen to him, as they were used to Prost and Lauda's positive comments about the car's handling. He also had some trouble adapting to the Bosch fuel management system early in the year, which resulted on him running dry during the final stages of a couple of races, but this was sorted out by mid-season (the fact that both McLarens ran dry at Hockenheim was due to a computer problem).

Rosberg decided to leave Williams in 1984 due to the unreliability of his car's Honda engines, and because he was unhappy that Nigel Mansell had been recruited as his team-mate for 1985 (he later admitted that he had been too quick to judge Mansell, and that he was actually a good team-mate). By the end of 1985, Williams was in the ascendancy in performance terms, and his relationship with the team had improved once again, but he had already signed with McLaren for 1986 and decided to honour his contract.

Rosberg mentions his problems with the MP4/2C in the 1986 edition of Autocourse:

After two years of the car being set up by Prost and Lauda, it was perhaps obvious that I might have different tastes. But when I was talking about getting rid of a lot of understeer, I meant a lot. They were thinking in terms of the fine adjustments they were used to talking about with Niki and Alain. It took some time to get the message across...

It's worth noting that Rosberg's performances improved in the second half of the season: he took pole position at Hockenheim, and was leading the race comfortably at Adelaide before his puncture.

Edited by midgrid, 16 January 2011 - 19:43.

[scheivlak]

There's an earlier thread:

http://forums.autosp...w...&hl=Rosberg

[fareleiro]

Thanks!! both of you