If it is "beneficial" for Mercedes to support Rosberg to become a legend...

Because, after all, this "Rumble in the Desert" between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg is not just a world final, between two drivers paired with nine victories each, but has a deeper meaning, sealing a Mercedes dominance that is a candidate to enter the legend.

Finally we are here, the seconds are out, the black and white, the Yin and Yang of F1, will race against each other, but also for each other. Yes because, although it sounds blasphemous, the two in recent years have been the new "Senna and Prost", companions of a unique, dominant team, alone in command, friends-enemies as in the best sagas.

So far, probably due to class and charisma, Luigi has always prevailed, star in the Star, with Nico always there attached, close, dignified challenger and defeated twice with his head held high. This year, however, luck understood as destiny, seemed to turn its back on the fast and free-spirited Carl Lewis of F1, and choose a renewed Rosberg, hardened in spirit, very concentrated. Ultimately, with different routes, a rainbow roller coaster far more fascinating than the carousel that annually hosts the Ferrari drivers, both Mercedes boys deserve the rainbow. But Mercedes, deep down, might want Rosberg to win.

History has been made. Sixteen victories in 2014, sixteen victories in 2015, already eighteen this year. The Formula Hybrid had an Anglo-German master who left only crumbs to his opponents (in three years only five victories for Red Bull and three for Ferrari, cosmic nothingness), yet the Legend, the consecration, goes through a further step , the one never approached by Ferrari or Red Bull.

The Red team of the golden years had only one leader, Michael Schumacher, and a world championship won by Barrichello would have bordered on a logical paradox. Red Bull, in its winning cycle, had its perfect finisher in the freshness and hunger of Sebastian Vettel, with Mark Webber kept at a safe distance. Mercedes, on the other hand, and this is a great merit, chose right from the start to take two drivers (almost) of the same level, of the same age, hungry and fast. Although today's hyper-technological and aseptic F1 has very little to do withand put of that between the eighties and nineties of the last century, there is no doubt that the Hamilton-Rosberg duel and their fratricidal global struggles, complete with contacts here and there over the years, are the closest thing to kolossal masterfully interpreted by the two Oscar winners Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.

Should Rosberg win the world championship, a more than probable hypothesis, Mercedes could boast of having won the title with two different drivers, yearning among other things for the supremacy of the car over man, the strength of the team over the individual, the Hegelian Absolute that summarizes the detail. Even a trio of Hamilton with Brackley would be historic, after all every world championship is, but the sensation of yet another one-way cycle, of the single dominator, would remain. The rest of us don't care, but Mercedes would only have to attest to the unapproachability of certain myths of the past. With a victory for Rosberg, however, Stuttgart would bring the gods closer, being able to dare where he failed at Ferrari in the golden years and at Red Bull. Who will the box cheer for on Sunday?

Antonino Rendina

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