F1 champ Rosberg comes home to Wiesbaden

Shortly after Nico Rosberg won the F1 title on Sunday, a spokesperson for the western German city of Wiesbaden announced that it would send a letter to congratulate him and invite him to visit his hometown at his earliest opportunity.

However, even Wiesbaden's mayor, Sven Gerich, was surprised when he received a message from Rosberg via Facebook, saying that he would be in the capital of the state of Hesse on Wednesday.

"The first thing I did was to ask my staff to check out whether the message was genuine," the mayor told a joint press conference with Rosberg at Wiesbaden city hall on Wednesday morning.

Rosberg, the son of Finnish former F1 champion Keke Rosberg, spent part of his childhood in Wiesbaden, which is also the hometown of his mother, Sina.

During the press conference, which lasted the better part of an hour, Rosberg fielded several questions about his connection to his hometown and home state, which he said remained strong despite the fact that he has long resided in Monaco.

Relationship with Hamilton

Rosberg was also asked about his view on how his teammate, Lewis Hamilton had conducted himself in Sunday's race, something that could see the Briton sanctioned by their Mercedes team.

Hamilton has been accused by some of playing dirty on Sunday after using his position in first place to slow down the pack. The tactic was allegedly designed to allow some of those behind Rosberg to overtake him and cause the German to finish off the podium, which would have given the Briton a chance to snatch the title from his grasp.

"I think it is a shame that so much has been made of this issue," Rosberg said. "I can understand the team's point of view, because we have always driven within a certain set of parameters. I can also understand Lewis, because we are fighters in the cars, we were fighting for the F1 championship."

Asked about the state of their strained relationship, Rosberg said he believed that it would be difficult as long as they were competing on the track.

"We are always driving to win races and the title. The one thing that helps us is that we have a basic respect for one-another," he said.

The newly crowned champion made the detour to Wiesbaden while on the way home from Malaysia, where he had attended an event organized by team sponsor Petronas.