Brentford

Nico Rosberg was officially confirmed as a Williams driver for the 2006 Formula One season in late 2005. In the Engineering Aptitude Test he achieved the highest score in the team's history. In the first race of his young career Rosberg was driving a car which was not considered competitive enough to get to the podium, and also had to fight his way through the field after losing his nose cone on the first lap. Nonetheless, he finished in the points, seventh behind teammate Mark Webber, and recorded the fastest lap, becoming the youngest driver to do so in Formula One history and following this he was linked with a move to teams such as McLaren. He qualified third in Malaysia but his Cosworth engine blew up after only seven laps. Rosberg did get into the points for the second time in the season at the European Grand Prix because of the hydraulic failure of Webber. The rest of the 2006 season went less well for Rosberg. His closest attempt to get into the points was in Britain, where he was just one second behind eighth placed Jacques Villeneuve. Rosberg scored a total of four points, three fewer than teammate Webber over the course of what was a disappointing season for both himself and for Williams. Williams brought in new Toyota engines for 2007, along with a new team-mate, Alexander Wurz. Webber had moved to partner David Coulthard at Red Bull. Initially the Toyota powered FW29 showed potential in the pre-season test sessions. Rosberg remained realistic, saying, "In Formula One racing you cannot normally just jump back to the front of the grid from one year to the next!" Rosberg finished in the points seven times including a career best fourth at the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix. He was placed seventh in Australia, Hungary and Turkey and came home sixth at Italy and Belgium. Rosberg suffered only three retirements during 2007; hydraulic failure 14 laps from home in Malaysia and a oil leak at the United States Grand Prix five laps from the finish, where he was on course for sixth place. He had started the race 14th having "glazed" his brakes during qualifying, therefore damaging his confidence. An electronics glitch also put him out of the Japanese Grand Prix. During the first half of 2007, Rosberg saw Alexander Wurz score more points, but later in the season Rosberg passed Wurz in world championship points eventually more than quadrupling his 2006 points haul. 2 years later Rosberg secured the first podium finish of his career with a strong drive to third place at the Australian Grand Prix. The remainder of the season was more of a struggle. He was given a ten place grid penalty for the French Grand Prix because of him crashing into the back of Lewis Hamilton in the pit lane at the Canadian Grand Prix despite only his race being affected by the incident as Hamilton and Kimi Räikkönen were already eliminated. He finished second to Fernando Alonso in the Singapore Grand Prix after leading a Grand Prix for the first time in his career. This result was despite incurring a ten-second stop-go penalty for pitting while the pit lane was closed immediately after the deployment of the safety car. As what appeared to be a simple administrative formality took ten laps to issue and the slow Fisichella was a competitive car, he did not lose much time and rejoined fifth, whereas Robert Kubica dropped from fourth to last on the same penalty for the same offence. Rosberg had a solid season in 2009, scoring points at almost every race and also consistently qualifying in the top ten. He opened the season with a solid sixth place in Melbourne, before fading somewhat in the next three races. From China onwards, he improved, finishing eighth, then sixth, then fifth twice. At his home race in Germany, he put in arguably the best drive of his career, when he overcame fuel problems to climb from 15th on the grid and finish fourth ahead of championship leader Jenson Button. He then followed this up with another fourth place in the Hungarian Grand Prix and 5th in the European Grand Prix. Despite scoring a point in the Belgian Grand Prix, Rosberg's effort to score points at every race in the European season was ended at Monza. Rosberg returned to competitiveness at the Singapore Grand Prix by qualifying third and putting in the fastest lap of the weekend but despite overtaking Sebastian Vettel off the line and being on course for second place or even a maiden victory, Rosberg undid all his good work by crossing the white line out of his first pit stop and incurring a drive-through penalty just in time for the safety car. With the field bunched, he dropped to the back. Rosberg apologised to the team afterward by calling his mistake silly and stupid. Rosberg managed to claim fifth place at the Japanese Grand Prix after qualifying eleventh and starting in P7 on a good strategy after a number of grid penalties. Soon after the race, Jenson Button reported Rosberg to race stewards for speeding under yellow flag conditions, but Rosberg was cleared after stewards discovered that his dashboard display was only showing that he had low fuel. This secured Rosberg four points and put him in seventh place in the Drivers' Championship with 34.5 points, and Williams sixth in the Constructors' Championship. Rosberg scored every point for the Williams team during the season. On 29th October 2009, Rosberg announced that he was leaving the Williams team at the end of the season. He commented that Williams "have really supported my career over the years and I'd like to say a big thank you to them. I'm not sure they can win races at the moment and I would like to!" On 16 November Brawn GP was bought by Mercedes and rebranded as Mercedes GP for the 2010 Formula One season. On 23 November, Rosberg was announced as the team's first driver. On 23rd December, Michael Schumacher was announced as Rosberg's team-mate and was given Rosberg's car number because of superstitious reasons. Despite much hype concerning Schumacher's comeback Rosberg managed to successfully out qualify and out-race his team mate at most races. In Malaysia, Rosberg achieved his first front row grid start, having qualified second in a qualifying session disrupted by rain, again out-qualifying Schumacher and eventually finished third in the race, which was Mercedes' first podium as a works team since their comeback. Mercedes were once again off the pace at the German Grand Prix and Rosberg could only finish eighth. Hungary looked more promising but he lost a wheel while exiting his pit stop and was forced to retire from a point-scoring position. His race at Spa was more successful and a race-long duel with Schumacher left Rosberg narrowly ahead of his team mate in sixth. The Italian Grand Prix yielded another consistent finish in fifth which was achieved by passing both Red Bulls at the start. He took another fifth-place finish in Singapore. The following year Rosberg ended the championship in the seventh place for the third time in a row above Schumacher in the final standings. He had scored no podium finishes during the season, and the gap in terms of points between Rosberg and his team-mate decreased from seventy points in 2010 to thirteen the following year. This was partly because the Mercedes MGP W02 generally had nobody to compete with with Red Bull having superior cars. Rosberg himself pointed to the fact that due to the new Pirelli tyres and the Drag Reduction System which were introduced in 2011, overtaking had become more possible and qualifying had lost its importance. Despite that, he praised DRS, stating that it could turn out to be one of the best rules in Formula One racing. Rosberg finished outside the points in the first two races of the season in Australia and Malaysia, finishing twelfth and thirteenth respectively. At the Chinese Grand Prix, Rosberg gained the first pole of his career. Rosberg took advantage of his grid position to storm to his maiden victory finishing over twenty seconds ahead of Jenson Button who fell back after a error during a pit-stop. Rosberg took his first points of the season and Mercedes' first win since Juan Manuel Fangio won the 1955 Italian Grand Prix prior to their withdrawal from the sport. In addition to that, Rosberg became the first German driver to win a Grand Prix driving a German car since Hermann Lang's victory at the 1939 Swiss Grand Prix and the first driver to win a Grand Prix during the life of their father who also achieved a Grand Prix victory in Formula One. Rosberg remained at Mercedes the following year but Michael Schumacher announced his retirement and he was replaced by Lewis Hamilton after Hamilton signed a three-year contract with the team. Rosberg retired from the Australian Grand Prix because of a electrical problem and finished fourth at the Malaysian Grand Prix after being ordered by the team not to overtake Hamilton, and during the Monaco Grand Prix, he led every lap and won the race which was notable given that he considers Monaco his home and that his father Keke Rosberg won the same race exactly thirty years earlier. On 30th June, Rosberg claimed his second win of the season and third of his career at the British Grand Prix. He benefited from a puncture suffered by Hamilton and a technical failure for Sebastian Vettel. Rosberg came back to being 2nd best to Vettel after the summer break qualifying 2nd, only 0.010 seconds behind Sebastian Vettel. 3 races later he started and finished 2nd in India, and in Abu Dhabi he finished third. Rosberg again qualified an impressive 2nd at a wet Brazil after finishing first in the practice sessions. He even took the lead but had to settle for 5th, finishing the season in sixth place in the championship with 171 points compared to Hamilton's 189. In the 2014 Australian Grand Prix, Rosberg won the race by over 20 seconds having started from third; his father Keke had won the first Formula One Australian Grand Prix in 1985. Daniel Ricciardo finished the race second but was later disqualified because of a fuel infringement. Kevin Magnussen was promoted to second and Jenson Button to third. In Malaysia he finished 2nd to give Mercedes-Benz their first 1-2 since the 1955 Italian Grand Prix, and in Bahrain Rosberg took pole but lost out to Hamilton at the start of the race and eventually finished second to his teammate. Rosberg said that the race was "a day for the sport" considering the criticism that Formula One racing has had in 2014. In China, he started fourth but fell back to sixth in the opening lap, however fought to finish second ahead of Fernando Alonso. At the German Grand Prix Rosberg took the 9th pole position of his career but Hamilton suffered a brake failure in qualifying and was forced to start 20th. Rosberg then went on to take a comfortable victory by 20 seconds from Valtteri Bottas, increasing his lead over Hamilton to 14 points. Rosberg's victory was the first German Grand Prix win for a German driver at the wheel of a German car since Rudolf Caracciola in 1939. In Hungary, Rosberg took pole position again and led the early stages of the race before a safety car period. For the majority of the race, Rosberg was unable to pass the cars of Jean-Éric Vergne and Hamilton; he ultimately finished fourth, behind Ricciardo, Alonso and Hamilton. The next round in Singapore resulted in Rosberg retiring from the race after a electrical failure. In Japan, Rosberg achieved pole but lost out to him in the race which was held in wet conditions and stopped early because of the fatal accident of Jules Bianchi. 2 years later Rosberg followed his China victory with pole position at the Russian Grand Prix and led the race from start to finish to claim his first Grand Slam, and become the first driver since Michael Schumacher in 2004 to win the first four races of the season. Rosberg came back into the lead in the championship after successive wins in Belgium and Italy and Singapore, passing Hamilton off the line to win in Italy with a collision with Sebastian Vettel at Turn 1 in Malaysia sending him to the back of the field, but he recovered to finish 3rd and extended his championship advantage because of his teammate retiring with a engine failure. A dominant win in Japan helped him to extend his advantage to 33 points meaning that the championship was now in his hands. A second-place finish in the final race of the season at Abu Dhabi was sufficient to clinch the championship, despite his teammate and eventual race winner backing the pair into the chasing pack in the closing stages of the race. Rosberg is the only driver to win the championship apart from Sebastian Vettel and Hamilton since 2010. He is only the son of a former champion to have won the title himself and the first to have achieved this feat while his father is alive. He is also the first ever German Formula One racing driver to win a title in a German team with a German engine. Rosberg won the International Racing Driver Award at the 2016 Autosport Awards. The award was first won by Keke in 1982. Rosberg announced his immediate retirement from Formula One racing on 2nd December at the FIA Prize Giving Ceremony in Vienna. The decision came after he reached the "pinnacle" of his career after winning the 2016 World Drivers' Championship. He was the first reigning champion to do so since Alain Prost in 1993