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Two shots of action as Rosberg, driving a Peugeot 307 Tooter, races Sweden’s Anna Hammarström on the back straight of Taddle Creek.
“She broke my heart”
The story of Thomas Rosberg and his wife, Mercedes driver and seven-time world champion Caroline “Coco” Bianchi, has been the subject of an excellent profile in this week’s Friday Night F1.
The highly selective profile was written by Ferrari deputy head of motorsport Marco Mattiacci, who ran on to the 2013 campaign with Bianchi — an incredible achievement given he’d had her killed just a month earlier.
He remembered Bianchi telling him that she would have an epiphany.
His wife and Rosberg got a call around the same time from Bianchi’s family explaining that the the 25-year-old car driver had gone into a coma after suffering a severe head injury in a training accident in Japan a little over a year ago.
He had been racing MotoGP and had been on the grid for three Grand Prix since her death.
Rosberg told Mattiacci that he decided to leave Renault to join Mercedes.
Bianchi was only supposed to stay with Renault for the third race of that Formula One season, but her situation was in such serious trouble that Mattiacci told her family that she had to be taken to hospital.
All of Bianchi’s and Rosberg’s troubles were played out in the lavish fashion of Formula One.
As Bianchi’s condition slowly improved, Rosberg, who had not been racing in qualifying practice before, was invited to drive in the penultimate race.
Bianchi was lying unconscious in a coma on her back and a specialist’s voice informed her father.
“Coco’s father said to Rosberg and Bianchi’s mother, “You really gave Coco her aint!” he said. “She just broke your heart.”
“Coco would have loved you all,” added Bianchi’s father, Stefano.
“Teddy loves you all”
Rosberg found himself racing in a sport that he knew nothing about, having learned the “unconventional” school of theory only the week before.
A profile of Bianchi in Vogue magazine earlier this year revealed a lot about him too.
“He’s so charming… without any appearance of over-rehearsing”, Bianchi’s fiancée Michelle Cotsarel wrote.
A very-cool-for-school ice maiden.
“We’ve gone out together to some rather cool places,” Bianchi said. “We’ve done circuits together and things like that.
“We have a great time on my day. And it’s very special. In France it’s only possible for men, so it’s really special. I’m a girl and a boy, but I’m a woman.
“It’s a girlie car… I love France… the countryside. I love the Tingle Creek Circuit in Italy, just to relax and not have to worry about anything.
“When I’m by myself I can just watch Formula One. I can’t miss the racing because we speak. We speak five hours a day.
“At the weekends I’m chilling out. I play golf and tennis and am an A-list football fan.
“And then if I can’t get to Tingle Creek I’m in the Chelsea dressing room, without any supporters, I have no excuses. Just being myself. You never know what could be happening, but we’ve had a lot of good times together.”
