Nico Rosberg hopes time will heal his relationship with former Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton after falling out during their time racing alongside each other in Formula One.
Hamilton and Rosberg have known each other since they were teammates in go-kart racing and were close friends before their career paths split on the road to F1. They were reunited as teammates at Mercedes in 2013 and entered head-to-head competition for the title between 2014 and 2016 as the German brand dominated the sport.
The intense competition during that period saw their personal relationship deteriorate to the point that they were barely on speaking terms in their fourth year together in 2016. After Hamilton won the title in 2014 and 2015, Rosberg emerged as world champion in 2016 before announcing his shock retirement at the end of the season.
In his life after F1, Rosberg has taken to YouTube to share snippets of his life and connect with his fans, and in a recent Q&A one of his Twitter followers asked if Hamilton was "as annoying behind the cameras as he is on them?" In a defence of his former teammate's personality, Rosberg revealed that he still hopes the pair can rekindle their friendship in the future.
"Look, we were really good friends back in the day and I still have a lot of respect for him and always will have," Rosberg said. "In private he's a good guy, so of course it's always different the way you get perceived on camera and how you are in that big F1 world, but in private I can say he is a really good guy with some good values.
"So I hope maybe with time one day we can get back to getting on better."
Rosberg said having Hamilton as a teammate made his world championship victory all the more special.
"That sort of battle, it doesn't get better than that. Racing against one of the best of all time in the same car as you ... awesome.
"And then to come out beating him at the end, [doing] better than that is not possible and that's why it gave me such fulfilment for my career. It couldn't have ended in a better way and the opponent counts in that."
However, Rosberg shows no signs of regretting his decision to retire from racing and when asked what his next goal was, he said he remained focused on business projects.
"[My next goal is] to be a very good ambassador to brands," he said. "And then other challenges? The whole investment challenge. I'm really enjoying looking into that, discovering all these start-ups -- people who are incredible inventive and creative, and especially in mobility -- how we are going to get from A to B in the future. It's revolutionising at the moment.
"For example in ten years' time we are going to be able to sit here, call up a drone, it is going to land at the end there and be autonomous without a pilot and it's going to take us to the airport and just hop over there in five minutes. The way we move is going to revolutionise soon and I'm very interested in that as well."