Nico Rosberg to get F1 drive next season with Williams team

ist of familiar Formula One families is long: Rosberg, Hill, Villeneuve, Brabham, Andretti...

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Nico Rosberg, son of the 1982 Formula One World Champion, Keke Rosberg of Finland, has been confirmed to debut in the Formula One circuit in March 2006, racing for the Williams team.
      Rosberg, who raced under a Finnish licence in the German Formula BMW series in 2002, has decided to represent Germany - his mother Sina's home country - in Formula One GPs. The decision was made to improve his chances in securing corporate sponsorship deals.
     
Rosberg Jr., the winner of this year's Formula GP2 World Championship, will not by any means be the first Formula One driver to follow in his father's footsteps. The list of names is long: Rosberg, Hill, Villeneuve, Scheckter, Brabham, Andretti, Jones...
      Perhaps the best-known father and son in the sport's history are the British drivers Graham and Damon Hill. So far, they are the only father-son combination who have both secured the coveted drivers' world championship title. Father Graham did it twice, in 1962 and again in 1968. Son Damon's turn was in 1996.
      Damon's rise to victory in the world's most prestigious motor sports discipline was nothing short of remarkable. Williams signed him on in 1993, and three years later he was crowned as the world champion.
      Nico Rosberg, in turn, will enter the sport with a very different Williams team.
     
This season Williams did not win a single F1 Grand Prix. Their contract with BMW has ended, and, on top of everything else, Williams has lost their main sponsor, the computer giant Hewlett-Packard.
      Furthermore, Williams has changed their tyre supplier from Michelin to Bridgestone. During the now completed 2005 F1 season, Michelin was very much the winners' choice.
      Still, Nico would do well to prepare himself for pressure and high expectations. When the father is a famous race driver, a lot will be expected of the son as well.
     
Apart from Nico Rosberg, other second-generation Formula One champion wannabes are also seeking their way to the top.
      Rosberg's adversaries in the GP2 series included, among others, Niki Lauda's son Matthias and Nelson Piquet Junior.
      The new A1 Grand Prix series, in turn, has Australian Christian Jones, son of the 1980 Formula One World Champion Alan Jones, and Tomas Scheckter of South Africa, whose father Jody won the title in 1979.
     
The 1997 Formula One champion Jacques Villeneuve's father Gilles was also a brilliant F1 driver, but the Canadian never captured the crown. Instead, an accident took his life at Zolder in Belgium in 1982, the year that Nico Rosberg's father won the championship.
      Similar tragedy has also taken place in Finnish motor racing history. Marcus Grönholm, two-time World Rally Champion, lost his father, rally driver Ulf Grönholm, when he was just a teenager. Ulf Grönholm had a fatal crash in a winter race practice run.
     
Source: Reuters


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Shedding a father´s shadow: the new GP2 champion´s route to the top (4.10.2005)

Links:
  Reuters: Rosberg must climb mountain to emulate Hill
  Williams-BMW

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