As a contemporary of Lewis Hamilton and Robert Kubica in karts and junior racing, Nico Rosberg ought to be at the forefront of the next generation of superstars with them.
But three seasons with a Williams team still struggling to recapture past glories has seen Rosberg slip out of the headlines.
Though he loves the Grove-based team, he has warned that he will have to look elsewhere for 2010 if this year’s Williams is a not a front-runner.
Rosberg’s speed and racer’s instincts are reminiscent of his former world champion father Keke, and he has achieved a great deal in adversity since arriving in F1.
Last year finally yielded his first two podium finishes, but Williams’s fluctuations in form meant he spent a lot of the season struggling to get near the top 10.
He knows he cannot afford many more years in the midfield, making 2009 a critical season for both Rosberg and his team.
Career log
Rosberg’s relationship with Williams dates back to a test in December 2002, when he was only 17 years old.
At the time it was considered more of a publicity stunt than an audition, but in fact it served both purposes – gaining plenty of press for Williams, and alerting them to Rosberg’s huge potential.
His on-track pace was impressive enough, but it was young Nico’s brainpower that really wowed the team.
All new Williams drivers have to sit a written exam to assess their technical understanding – and Rosberg achieved a record score.
Far from being a one-off photo opportunity, that initial test was the first of many runs for Williams, and by 2006 he had been promoted to the race team.
Rosberg made a spectacular start to his F1 career by setting fastest lap as he charged from last to seventh following a first corner tangle in Bahrain.
But 2006 would ultimately turn out to be Williams’s worst campaign since the 1970s.
However, in between the disappointments and reliability problems, Rosberg continued to impress.
Although there were the inevitable rookie blips, he did enough to demonstrate his potential and set himself up for a breakthrough 2007, which saw him round off the rough edges and spearhead Williams’s recovery to fourth in the constructors’ championship.
He started 2008 with a maiden podium in Australia, and later took second in Singapore, but was often hamstrung by his car.
Rosberg was also guilty of wasting chances, though, and would rue errors in Monaco and Canada on days when further podiums were possible.
The early years
After starring in karts and dominating the German Formula BMW series in his teens, Rosberg spent two seasons in the Formula 3 Euro Series, where he won races but didn’t fulfil his potential.
That omission was soon rectified when Rosberg moved up to the new GP2 series in 2005.
By mid-season, the hard-charging German and his ART team were the class of the field.
He snatched the title from season-long points leader Heikki Kovalainen at the final meeting, and was confirmed as a 2006 Williams driver soon afterwards.