Race Preview: A Monaco story - When Nico met Mika

This weekend’s Grand Prix in Monaco is one of the most important and certainly the most prestigious one of the season and not just because of the difficult street track, low-speed corners, and battle to gain advantage on highly competitive grid; but also because of the history of this legendary venue. There are many interesting stories of Circuit de Monaco and the 69 races that have happened there so far. There will certainly be many more in the coming years, but for now let us concentrate on one of the interesting evening in Monaco before this year’s GP.

It’s a scene that happens hundreds of thousands of times a day around the world: two people meet in a lift, greet each other and begin to chat about work and life. The twist in this particular story, though, is that the elevator is in Monte-Carlo; the two men are resident in the same apartment building, separated by little more than a few floors; and both have written their own chapters in the very exclusive grand prix racing history of Mercedes-Benz.

Mika Häkkinen was the first Mercedes-Benz world champion of the modern era, and a two-time title winner in 1998 and 1999 with McLaren Mercedes; Nico Rosberg is the first man to win a Grand Prix at the wheel of a Silver Arrow since the great Juan Manuel Fangio, in the third season of the return of the Silver Arrows. On the eve of the race around their home streets, the two men met to discuss their experiences as part of one of the most spectacular events in world sport.