Nico Rosberg made it two Mercedes pole positions in as many weeks as he produced a sensational final lap to take the spoils in Bahrain, ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso. It was the second pole position of his career and means that Mercedes and Red Bull have both taken half the pole positions this season. But the race could be a different story. After being off the ultimate pace throughout the weekend’s practice sessions Rosberg showed his speed from the outset of qualifying, although he only topped the times in Q3. And after coming close already this year More…

Nico Rosberg says he is confident that there is no number one and no number two at Mercedes despite being asked to hold position behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton in Malaysia. Rosberg, 27, was quicker than Hamilton, 28, in the closing stages in Sepang and asked if he could overtake the 2008 world champion. However team principal Ross Brawn refused his request citing that Hamilton had been asked to back off due to concerns over fuel consumption. Hamilton went on to finish third, scoring his first podium for the team and saying after the race that Rosberg deserved to be on More…

Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn believes his outfit have the best driver line-up in Formula 1 in Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. The Brackley-based team signed Hamilton to replace seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher alongside Rosberg. Though the car struggled to score points towards the end of last season, Mercedes have shown good pace in testing. Rosberg set the fastest time of winter testing in Barcelona, with Hamilton clocking the third best. And Brawn believes Rosberg, who made his debut for Williams in 2006, has stepped up his performances after spending three years as Schumacher’s team-mate. “If we are honest, More…

Following on from our analysis of the head-to-head record of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button over three years as McLaren, here the second in the series, analysing Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg’s similar stint at Mercedes. Schumacher brought the curtain down on his Formula 1 career for the second time at last weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix and in doing so ended a three-year and 58 race relationship with Mercedes alongside fellow German Nico Rosberg. It would be fair to say the seven-time world champion’s comeback with the Silver Arrow didn’t quite go to plan. Throughout his career, Schumacher has consistently More…

This is a fun video with Mercedes F1 driver Nico Rosberg showing Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero how much faster a real racing car is than a high performance sportscar. It’s part of a series by Puma, which brings sports people from different disciplines into contact with F1 and motorsport. It all helps to spread the word about our sport. What works well here is that Aguero is very cocky when it comes to driving the road car, texting on his phone while Rosberg is trying to show him the lines around a rather damp Donington – to the extent More…

Nico Rosberg joined the exclusive club of drivers who have converted their first pole position into their first victory with a dominant performance in Shanghai. It was Mercedes first win as a constructor since 1955. And it meant that team boss Ross Brawn has now won races as a senior manager with four different teams, a unique achievement. Rosberg produced a faultless drive and it gave him that elusive first win after one-hundred and eleven starts, and the first for the Silver Arrows since 1955. Rosberg completed the race twenty seconds clear of the McLaren duo of Jenson Button and More…

Mercedes will have an all Silver Arrows front row in tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix, the first time this has happened since their comeback as a constructor in 2010. Nico Rosberg took an emotional first F1 pole position, in his 111th Grand Prix, while Michael Schumacher moves up to join him on the front row after Lewis Hamilton is demoted five places on the grid tomorrow, from second to seventh, due to a forced gearbox change penalty. “It went really well and it’s a very special feeling,” Rosberg said. “Now obviously l am looking forward to starting first in the race! More…

Nico Rosberg has extended his contract with Mercedes, for a period that will take him into his 30s. It puts to an end all suggestions that he may join Ferrari as replacement to Felipe Massa any time soon. Rosberg was already under contract for 2012, but the new deal adds a “multi-year” term to that, likely to be three years from 2013 onwards with options. Mercedes statement claims that the 26 year old has demonstrated that “he belongs to the top group of drivers currently racing in Formula One.” Meanwhile Rosberg himself confidently asserts that “To win in a Silver More…

I came across these two videos of two of F1′s leading drivers Mark Webber and Nico Rosberg, formerly team mates at Williams. One is a video blog, the second that Rosberg has done from the back seat of his Mercedes limo as he speeds toward the private aviation terminal at the airport, no doubt. It’s good to get a driver to share his thoughts immediately after the race, like this. Rosberg reflects on Mercedes pace in the race and his own performance. He lost the start to his team mate Michael Schumacher and couldn’t get back in front. The other More…

There is a lot of chatter at the moment about the updates on the Mercedes in Barcelona being done to help Michael Schumacher, but at the expense of Nico Rosberg. Rosberg had a stronger start to the season, but in Spain the form was turned around. Rosberg went into Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix in second place in the championship, but had had his most uncompetitive weekend of the season; he could not get the car to work as he wanted it and scored no points. In contrast, Michael Schumacher qualified well and finished in fourth place, his most competitive showing More…

There was a curious incident during qualifying when Fernando Alonso exited his pit garage and almost drove straight into Nico Rosberg. The German braked hard and an accident was avoided, but Rosberg called for a penalty for the Spaniard over the radio and the FIA stewards decided to fine him and the Ferrari team $20,000 for unsafe release. It was a bit like a footballer who calls for a fellow professional to get a yellow card. Operationally it was unusual that there was no Ferrari mechanic in the pit lane in front of the car, looking to see if the More…

Nico Rosberg said this afternoon that he expects his team mate Michael Schumacher to come back strongly in this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, after a disappointing start to the season, now he is armed with the updated Mercedes car. Rosberg has had the edge on Schumacher at every race so far and in China the gap between them was significant. But both men believe that this was an aberration and Rosberg expects a tough fight from Schumacher from now on, starting this weekend, “He was very fast in Malaysia and China was a complete anomaly, so we need to be More…

Michael Schumacher is adamant he’s still got every chance of winning an eighth Formula 1 World Championship this season despite taking his time to get back up to speed. After the opening three races, he is one of only five drivers not to outqualify his team mate. The 41 year old began the season with a sixth place finish in Bahrain, but struggled to tenth place in Australia, a week later, and retired after just nine laps in Malaysia with a wheel nut problem. However, the Mercedes GP driver said today in Shanghai that he was pleased with his start More…

Nico Rosberg will lead Mercedes’ attack on F1 next season. The 24 year old is a great choice for the iconic Mercedes brand as he is their own three pointed star; he’s fast, he’s marketable and he’s hungry. The 24 year old German driver was announced today during a conference call n with Mercedes Benz motorsport vice president Norbert Haug and Mercedes F1 CEO Nick Fry. He is the first driver to be announced by Mercedes since it took over the Brawn GP team and the first German to drive for them since Karl Kling piloted one of the Silver More…

Mercedes are on the conference call trail again this morning. This time it is to announce what Mercedes describes as the “first new driver” for its team, which is expected to be Nico Rosberg, as he has been signed to the team for some time. Rosberg will be in the conference call as will Norbert Haug, the vice president of Mercedes Benz motorsport and Nick Fry, who is now billed as the CEO of the Mercedes F1 team. Haug continues to maintain that the Mercedes driver line up will ‘surprise’ and will be appealing. Over the weekend Ross Brawn told More…

Nico Rosberg sat down with a few of us this afternoon and promptly came out with the statement that this would be his last race with Williams. It comes as no great surprise to anyone, as he has been strongly linked with a seat at Brawn-Mercedes for months and less strongly linked with McLaren Mercedes. Rosberg’s seat at Williams will be taken by Rubens Barrichello and the received wisdom is that the pair are doing a swap. But Rosberg would not be drawn on where he was going next. “It is my last race for Williams,” he said. “It is More…

In the light of the Renault penalties over Singapore, Williams driver Nico Rosberg regrets that Fernando Alonso’s victory cannot be struck from the records, giving him his first race win. Rosberg finished second to Alonso, but as we no know, the victory was achieved as a direct result of the team cheating. Had Piquet come clean at the time, or even up to a month after the event, Rosberg might have had his win. But under FIA rules the deadline for changing the result of last year’s Singapore Grand Prix was the end of November. By then Piquet had been More…

This afternoon I sat down, along with various press colleagues, with Fernando Alonso, Robert Kubica and Nico Rosberg and all three gave very interesting insights into their thought processes at this important time in the driver market. It’s quite possible that all three drivers will move teams for next year. Widespread rumour since last Christmas has Alonso going to Ferrari (either next year or 2011), Kubica has a choice of Williams, Renault and Toyota, Rosberg will probably either stay put or move to McLaren Mercedes. This stage of the season is all about trying to unpick the lock, to figure More…

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said this morning in Valencia that he is not in discussions with any drivers regarding the seat currently occupied by Heikki Kovalainen. He also talked openly about Fernando Alonso’s expected move to Ferrari and its effect on the driver market. The Finn admitted yesterday that his performances have been disappointing this season, particularly in races and that he has had talks with the team about how he can get more from himself and the car. He has put extra hours in on the simulator ahead of this weekend. Meanwhile Nico Rosberg openly discussed the possibility More…

Nico Rosberg has been doing an excellent job lately in the much improved Williams car. After some muttered comments from the team about ‘inconsistency’ a couple of months ago, he has put together a strong run of form, with four consecutive top six finishes in the run up to Budapest, including a battling drive to fifth from 15th on the grid in Germany. That Germany qualifying result aside, he has also qualified pretty solidly in the top ten all season. “I’m pleased the team is progressing really well and we are right up there performance wise, ” he said to More…

The politics which have dominated Formula 1 appear to be more under control now and as a result the talk here in the paddock is all about drivers movements for next season. Normally this subject is top of the agenda at this time of year, but teams and journalists have been too tied up dealing with possible breakaways. One move which seems to be on the cards is Nico Rosberg to BMW in place of Nick Heidfeld. The 24 year old is in his fourth season with Williams and clearly feels it is time to move on. He said yesterday More…

I’m intrigued by the comments coming out of Williams over the last 24 hours, regarding Nico Rosberg. First at the top of yesterday’s press release after the race they said, “Inconsistency compromised a strong strategy and left Nico in P8 and with one point at race end.” Then lower down, Patrick Head says, “Nico’s pace in the first stint was initially good, but we then struggled to maintain consistency, so we will have to investigate that.” Today comes a de-brief document from the team, in which technical director Sam Michael says “Nico’s lap times were somewhat inconsistent, yes, and we More…

At the Williams team pre-season briefing the other day, I was mucking about with a Flip video camera and here is a clip of Nico explaining the big difference between last year’s cars and this years and the key to driving the 2009 spec cars. Sorry it’s a bit quiet, I’ll get the audio better next time… Anyway as you can see, Nico looks very skinny. He’s had to lose some weight to compensate for the extra weight of the KERS hybrid system in the cars this season, as have all the drivers (not that he had much to lose). More…