28 July 2023 , 15:37
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McLaren erected a sign banning Nico Rosberg from taking selfies outside their garage in a tongue-in-cheek joke at the Belgian Grand Prix.
The German is a welcome face in the Formula 1 paddock as the sport's 2016 champion. And he is often in attendance at races given his role as a pundit for Sky Sports. But his presence is only welcome in certain circumstances it seems. His punditry is encouraged, but selfies in front of the team garages appear to be off limits these days.
That's certainly the case at McLaren. The Woking-based team is taking the 'Rosberg curse' seriously after Lewis Hamilton became its latest victim last weekend in Hungary.
The 'curse' has become a talking point on social media. Fans have noticed that snaps posted by Rosberg on his own channels of himself in front of a specific team's garage is often followed by on-track misfortune for that team.
It happened twice in Budapest last weekend. Before qualifying, the German snapped himself in front of Max Verstappen's car – only for the Dutchman to then miss out on pole position for the first time in two months.
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On the Sunday, Rosberg chose Hamilton's garage as the ideal place to take a selfie. And, in the race, his former Mercedes team-mate slipped from first to fourth on the opening lap and failed to finish on the podium.
McLaren, clearly taking no chances, made a sign on A4 paper which read: "No Rosberg selfies," and taped it to the front of their garage at Spa-Francorchamps. Along with a photo of the sign, the team wrote on social media: "We've seen your jinxing powers, @NicoRosberg."
Speaking after that Hungary race, Rosberg acknowledged that there is a trend of drivers suffering misfortune after his pre-session selfie habit. "Yeah, that’s not cool. That’s not cool at all," he said on Sky. "I post, like, on race weekends, I post a picture in the pit lane with a car or something, and that car has gone pretty poorly.
"So, I need to be careful with that in the future. The back of the back story here is that on Saturday I posted Max's car, and of course he lost the qualifying. And then on Sunday I was like, 'Go Mercedes', and I posted Lewis' car and that went completely wrong. So that's the backstory behind this."