If there was a conveyor belt of driving superstars it would definitely be born outta some German warehouse. Mind you history will tell you that a Finnish family tree ain’t a bad blood stock either. The year of 1985 rolled out another future racing ace by the name of Nico Rosberg. Born of racing pedigree, Nico grew up in Monaco where once a year the F1 circus would come to town and tear the sky open with the piercing screams of the world’s most advanced cars and human engineering.

The combo of watching his father race and sitting amongst the spiritual home of F1 got under the skin of Nico and he was getting used to the unforgiving feel of race seats from the age of eleven. Karting was the first training ground for the youngster and he spent 6 years honing his race craft and eyeing a move for bigger things in faster machines.

The step up came in 2002 when he got his foot in the door of the German Formula BMW championship. In fact he pretty much shoulder charged the thing and finished his debut season as champion. Not a bad start to life in a racing harness. A switch to Formula Three at differing levels was to follow before he got the nod for a seat at the newly created GP2 Series in 2005. He won it at the first time of asking right under the nose of the F1 bosses in the very same paddocks.

Sir Frank Williams, team owner and boss of former racing greats such as Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansel was the man who made his move (having put him at the seat of a test car) and Nico found himself aged 21 striding through paddocks and circuits in the colours of one of the most famous racing outfits worldwide. It wasn’t always and easy time for the team and the car wasn’t expected to set the pace but in his first outing of his F1 career, Nico produced the fastest lap of the race. He announced himself to the world as a race car driver.

His Williams career had its ups and downs but aside from his fair share of mechanical failures he ghosted team-mate Mark Webber in his debut season. The following three years saw continued development of results and driving prowess to the point that he visited the podium twice in 2008, led his first race in the same season and notched enough eye catching results in 2009 to finish the season in seventh.

The call came from Ross Brawn in the winter break of 2009/2010 when the option to stride into the Mercedes GP Petronas team and share a garage with the legendary Michael Schumacher was a huge complement and a massive step up in his profile on the world stage. Frankly unbothered about the commotion going on around him, Nico set to work on his car and strung together a ton of super competitive results and finished seventh again. Whether or not it was his plan – finishing above Michael was a pretty tidy accolade also.

Still in his mid twenties, Nico is charging towards bigger and bigger results and with a bunch of podiums behind him he carries himself like a man who can race for the top of the box. Like millions of fans worldwide, we’re pumped to get to watch him race and see his career develop.