Mercedes had to ‘intervene’ when Lewis Hamilton kept losing weight to beat Nico Rosberg

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Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg kept losing weight during their title battles at Mercedes to chase extra performance, according to Aldo Costa.

F1 didn’t introduce the minimum weight rule for drivers until the 2019 season. Beforehand, the weight of the car and driver were measured together.

When Hamilton and Rosberg were teammates (between 2013 and 2016), Mercedes set a target weight for the two drivers. As they fought for the title in the early years of the turbo/hybrid era, this became a battleground.

We’ve seen some intense feuds between teammates. But what is the greatest rivalry ever?

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Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg became ‘anchovies’ at Mercedes

Aldo Costa saw the rivalry between the two drivers up close during his stint as a Mercedes designer. He revealed the extreme lengths they went to on the Terruzzi Racconta podcast.

Rosberg, for example, trained constantly for two years and studied the car in minute detail. Costa, who has also worked with the likes of Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso, has never seen a driver more ‘determined’.

Both Rosberg and Hamilton kept getting thinner in pursuit of marginal gains, to the point that Mercedes had to ‘intervene’ in the interests of their health.

Hamilton won the world championship relatively comfortably in 2014 and 2015, but Rosberg prevailed by just five points in 2016.

“That year, he decided in the winter to never stop training,” Costa said of Rosberg. “He confessed to me that he had been training every day for two years. He arrived in great shape and he was very determined.

“He was trying to get in touch with all the engineers to understand the car more from an engineering point of view and to try and get an advantage.

“The races at the end of the year, he made some overtaking moves that took a few years off his life. That was precisely what this extra performance cost him. I have never seen such a determined driver.

• READ MORE: Mercedes once fined Nico Rosberg £360k for a Lewis Hamilton incident that left his career at risk

“Right from the start, we had set a driver weight to ensure that the car was underweight. The two had reached their target driver weight and then it started with Rosberg getting half a kilo lighter, then Hamilton was half a kilo lighter [and so on].

“They had become two anchovies. Inside the suit, there was nothing. At a certain point, we had to intervene.”

Aldo Costa reveals just how petty the Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg rivalry became

Costa also recalled that, during Mercedes briefings, Hamilton and Rosberg would jostle with one another for space, encapsulating the psychological warfare.

“They sat opposite each other in the engineering room during races, so they had their two PCs facing each other,” he said. “Like children, they pushed each other for more space.”

According to the late Niki Lauda, part of Mercedes’ management at the time, Rosberg and Hamilton wouldn’t even greet one another after falling out.

It was one of the most memorable teammate rivalries in F1 history, with the narrative enhanced by their childhood friendship.