Nico Rosberg

27/6/1985

Record updated 26-Jun-06

Son of Finnish 1982 Formula One world champion Keke Rosberg, Nico is the number two driver in the Williams F1 team.

Nico Rosberg
Nico Rosberg was born in Wiesbaden, Germany. He is the son of Finnish 1982 Formula One world champion Keke Rosberg, but races under the German flag because of his mother's nationality. Indeed, he speaks little Finnish. Nico does, however, have the citizenship of both Germany and Finland. He won 2005 GP2 Series for the ART team, having raced in Formula Three Euroseries previously for his father's team.

Nico started out in karting in 1996, at the age of eleven, before moving up to German Formula BMW in 2002. He won the 2002 title confidently and became the youngest man ever to drive a Formula One car when, aged just 17, he tested for Williams BMW that year. His performances resulted in a move to drive for Keke's team in Formula Three Euroseries, the series being a combination of the several national Formula Three championships which had existed previous to its formation. Nico did well there, and stayed on for 2004.

In 2005 Nico joined the ART Grand Prix team in the newly created GP2 Series. Nico had an excellent year, and went on to capture to drivers championship in the series. GP2 is supposed to be a level playing field, with all cars equal. Some claim that Nico was aided by his team being able to find speed in the car that others could not. Patrick Head of WilliamsF1 discounts that claim however, having stated that he has heard from "someone in authority" that ART had no car advantage.

Rosberg is tipped to have a bright future. In November 2005, Rosberg was officially confirmed as a WilliamsF1 driver for the 2006 season. Before the season he set another record in gaining the highest ever score in Williams' Engineering Aptitude test. In the first Formula 1 race of his young career in Bahrain, he not only placed in the points (he was seventh behind teammate Mark Webber), he also recorded the fastest lap. This was an amazing achievement considering that this was not only his first ever F1 race and that he was driving a car which was not considered competitive enough to get to the podium, but that he also had to fight his way through the field after losing his nosecone on lap 1.



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