Shock candidate emerges to break Max Verstappen’s win record

Max Verstappen’s ongoing winning streak could be undone if a fellow F1 World Champion decides to be a little bit naughty…

The Dutch driver extended his ongoing run of race victories to a record-breaking 10 consecutive wins last weekend in Monza, eclipsing the previous record of nine set by Sebastian Vettel for Red Bull back in 2013.

But that record could come under threat sooner rather than later, with a previous World Champion vowing to do his bit to break the streak.

Nico Rosberg addresses ‘curse selfie’ joke

2016 F1 World Champion Nico Rosberg has become infamous for his Grand Prix selfies which, coincidentally, usually seem to coincide with bad luck for the subjects pictured in his photos.

There’s already a popular meme centred around Rosberg, in which the German driver is pictured in front of explosions and flames fingerpointing at the camera, which came about thanks to his overly-dramatic video thumbnails from his own YouTube channel.

Over the Italian GP weekend, Rosberg posted a selfie of himself with the Ferrari pitwall in the background, with the caption “Forza Ferrari”, which led social media tifosi to round on the post in humorous alarm about the curse Rosberg had just put on the Ferrari team.

Having started from pole position and third on the grid, Ferrari finished the race in third and fourth – both Red Bull drivers overtaking their way to a 1-2 finish at the chequered flag.

Appearing on the Sky F1 podcast with presenter Matt Baker and fellow guest Aldas, Rosberg was asked when he will take a selfie with Max Verstappen in the background…

“Oh, yeah, this is the curse thing,” he said.

“I even tried this weekend, to do a neutral background. Because I thought I don’t want to cause any problems here!”

While Rosberg may have thought the picture of the pitwall was neutral, his caption expressing support for Ferrari was called out.

“Yeah, OK, Forza Ferrari, because the whole weekend was about that. And all of us were wishing for Ferrari to win,” he said.

“So I thought… so maybe I’m not even allowed to do that apparently.

“But that would be a bit aggressive if I then take a picture with Max before a race. That would not be cool, I think. So I’ll do it anyways!”

A particularly infamous example of the Rosberg curse came during the World Cup, when Rosberg tweeted from home with a selfie of himself watching Morocco play against France and indicating his support for Morocco.

Unsurprisingly, Morocco then lost the match, leading to more jokes about Rosberg’s curse.

Other examples have been recently in Hungary, when he posted support for polesitter Lewis Hamilton in Hungary, only for his former teammate to have a poor start and finish off the podium.

Rosberg also wished Charles Leclerc luck ahead of the 2021 Monaco Grand Prix, only for the Monégasque to miss out on starting his home race as damage from his Q3 crash resulted in a mechanical failure before the race start.