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'More to life than driving in circles' - Rosberg

Reigning F1 World Champion Nico Rosberg says he will be "looking to give something back" now he has quit the sport and that he realises "life has more to offer than driving round in circles".

Rosberg announced his shock retirement at the end of last season, just days after clinching the F1 2016 Drivers' title in Abu Dhabi, and while he will stay on with Mercedes after accepting an ambassador role, he is looking forward to new challenges, although they are not yet precisely defined.

"I feel very much fulfilled in terms of my career. I can look back and say I have ticked all the boxes of what I want to achieve and now I am very, very excited about the next steps. There are so many opportunities," Rosberg said at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

"One of the avenues that I want to go down is to give something back, in some way or another find something that really touches my heart. Now I have the time I am really going to go exploring and go down different avenues.

"I am going to go to Germany and visit children who are quite ill and especially children of the age who will be really happy to see me and where I can give them a great time. That is the first avenue.

"Renewable energy is something that could be quite interesting, there are so many opportunities and possibilities. Electric cars for example, my taxi the other day was a Tesla here in Switzerland - that's pretty cool - so it's quite impressive we have come that far already.

"I am going to keep pushing of course and I need my adrenalin rush but I want to make a difference in different areas. Let's see what the future holds and what directions I will be taking."

Rosberg also explained how all-consuming it is to compete in Formula One and how he is looking forward to having some freedom.

"First of all, to do sport at the highest level it is really 110 percent focus that is required and there is no room for any compromise whatsoever, at least that is the way I went about it," he added. "Everything else is secondary and so far behind and that is even family - I have a one and half year old daughter now - it is friends and any other exciting projects, everything is way, way behind. So there is a time for everything and I find that life has more to offer than driving around in circles and it just felt like the right moment.

"[As I said] I want to go for new challenges - that is it. Of course there is the matter of having more time for family, more time for friends, which is going to be wonderful and being in control of my own life as well.

"For the last 21 years of racing, even starting as a 10 year old, the whole season is planned by other people, telling you where you need to be all the time and especially in F1 - it is just really, really intense, the travelling, the working days and the 'this and that'. It is just planned all the way through and now all of a sudden it is freedom - complete freedom." 

Zdroj: crash.net