Are You Experienced?

Nico Rosberg was quick to speak and quick to learn last year. Now his experience shows.
By STEVE COOPER

Nico Rosberg saunters across the Williams motorhome, gives me a brief glimpse of his dazzling white smile and sits down.

"So, you're doing a cover feature... on me?" he enquires with a bemused look.

Yeah, I reply. That okay?

"Brilliant," he says, his face lighting up into a grin. "So you're actually gonna take Lewis off the front cover for once then?"

You can still find the wide-eyed and gleefully enthusiastic racing driver if you dig deep enough. He'd become rather more reticent in his comments after spending his first season pouring out his enthusiasm only to find that his words and intentions were being twisted and misquoted.

There's good reason for that, as his father Keke puts it: "He made a few careless or spontaneous comments which got pulled into the headlines and looked awful, even though they weren't so bad. And he burned his fingers a few times and learned that the cooking plate is hot! So he doesn't want to touch it again."

As we start talking, you initially sense that the answers he's giving are a little less spontaneous, and a little more guarded, than you'd expect. And for a guy with a razor-sharp mind, he's somewhat obsessive about his words wandering too far off piste. Most drivers would simply wince and ignore it, fully aware that once the words had left their mouths, there's little more they can do about them.

Not Nico. On several occasions during our chat, he drops himself in it, turns a phrase that he's not happy with or makes a statement that he knows will be left wide open to liberal interpretation. And when he does, he fights it; wants to reclaim those words. Check out the following backtrack - in the interests of full disclosure, reproduced here so you (and he) can clearly see that it's not being exploited:

"So, do you enjoy being a Formula 1 driver more this year?" I ask.

"Enjoy it more?" he mulls the question over unenthusiastically. "Hmm, I don't know. Yeah, in a way. With extra experience, nothing runs you over anymore - well, not so much. Well, not runs you over - how shall I say it? I guess you know where to put your energies, how to relax more."

"Talking of running you over..." I say, picking up where he's left off - but there's a sudden scramble from the other side of the table: "No! Take that away. I hate that! I can see that... that's another thing I learned: you've got to be really careful what you say! I did not say 'run me over' because you could use that in a shit way!"

He laughs at himself, and I tell him to trust me. "Good," he says. "You only learn about these things through experience."

In a nutshell, that last line neatly sums up Nico's F1 career path to date: a journey of experience. The driver who so impressed on his grand prix debut went on to blaze a trail through his opening races. But you can't survive in F1 on just frayed nerve-endings and pulsing sinew. At some point, the sport's infamous grind will drag you down; require you to dig deeper than you've ever had to just to stay afloat.

It's at that point that a young driver needs more than just his reactions to keep him going. He needs precisely what he doesn't have: experience.

And, occasionally, that inexperience got the better of Nico - big shunts in Hockenheim and Interlagos were testament to fearless youthful exuberance. And while that has been largely ironed out this season, Nico still suffered a big one just a fortnight ago, losing the rear end of his FW29 during a test at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya and writing off the tub when he slammed into a concrete wall.

"You always learn from crashes," he shrugs. "You have to - it's no good if you don't."

So what happened last week, I venture. Did you get caught out by standing rainwater on the kerbs? "Yeah," he says, embarrassed. "I don't want to speak about that one."

And while he still has to shrug off an acquired reputation for putting his car in the wall, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Nico has certainly benefited from a year's experience and a solid winter of consolidation to really come out fighting this season.

It definitely helps that Rosberg's new team-mate, Alex Wurz, has imbued the team with a calmer, more productive atmosphere after its two-year relationship with Mark Webber reached a somewhat strained end last year.

"I get along better with Alex," Rosberg readily admits. "Not that I got along badly with Mark, but Alex is a more easy-going person. And it's been working well between us this year. We've been able to push hard in a certain direction; and it's better when you have two voices rather than one - it gives you a stronger input into the team."

Experience has made Rosberg a more rounded driver, but he still managed to write off a tub testing in Barcelona © LAT/XPB

And that inner confidence has been spilling outwards, with Nico now moving centre stage, and with the bad vibes of the Webber years dimming in the team's consciousness, Rosberg has really begun to make progress working with the team. In fact, it's the area that he acknowledges as the single most important factor in his progression through F1.

"People don't realise it," he says, preparing to impart a precious drop of wisdom. "But as a driver, you're practically in a managerial role in a Formula 1 team - and from a very young age, too. So you have to pick up a lot of things very quickly."

It's a revelatory gem of information - and it does lead you to not only consider the exacting demands placed on this 22-year-old, but to also admire his clarity of thought in coming up with such an observation.

"The more time I spend with the team, the more I see just how much power the driver possesses to affect things," he continues. "You really have so much power in your hands. Jeez, it's unbelievable. And it takes a while to appreciate that - I'm still realising now just how much I can use the team.

"A Formula 1 team is so complex, you can't believe it. And the driver's role puts him more or less right at the centre of things, putting everything to the test. Of course, it's been made a bit more apparent by Alex's arrival. After 2005, Mark didn't have the best of relationships with the team so that process [of integration] wasn't so visible. Alex helped move everyone a bit closer."

The new dynamic between Wurz and Rosberg has certainly helped push Williams forwards. There's a spirit, freshness and enthusiasm within the team that started growing during the winter as Williams started sniffing out the prospect of improved fortunes.

While Nico still maintains that the 2007 car is not the substantial improvement over last year's disappointing FW28 that it should have been, he confirms that the team is working far closer to its full potential than it did last year.

"The car itself is obviously better than last year's," he says. "But there are a few things that need to be a bit stronger in some areas: the way the car has been adapted to the new Bridgestones, a stronger rear end.

That's something I like when I'm going into corners and it's an area where we're not very strong at the moment. But on the technical side, I just understand so much more. And I'm now able to push more and give clearer directions to the team. It all helps.

"At the end of last year, we were fighting for around 10th and 11th place. Now we're going for seventh and eighth - I passed Kubica in Malaysia and we beat the Renaults in Barcelona last week. On a normal weekend, we'd be fighting for seventh or eighth place. So it's not just me who's become better. You shouldn't forget the other side - the car is just better and that allows me to show what I can do."

Keke and Nico Rosberg © LAT

Nonetheless, there is still room for improvement, some claim. The frequent presence of triple world champion Sir Jackie Stewart alongside Nico has been taken by some to mean that the venerable Scot is passing on pearls of wisdom to the young German. Mentoring him, if you will.

It's not a scenario that Nico has ever contemplated when I raise it with him. "I'm happy to speak with Jackie," he says. "And when I do, he always gives me a few bits and pieces. It happens very rarely but I always try to take in whatever I can. Especially from him. I think he's quite a wise person and speaks a lot of sense."

But Stewart is forthright in his opinion that Rosberg still needs a broader, deeper motorsport education if he is to reach the highest pinnacles of the sport - a ceiling that Stewart also feels has suddenly been raised by the arrival of Lewis Hamilton, who threatens to rewrite all the rules in F1.

"Nico needs to open his eyes and he needs to listen," says Stewart. "He might be intelligent - but who's he going to learn from? He's got to find someone. His problem is that he doesn't know so much - but he thinks he does."

It's a somewhat extreme view and, in fairness, Rosberg does seem to be fully aware that the work is never done: the debrief could always be longer; the laptime always lower; the car ever faster.

"There's never anything less to learn about in Formula 1," he says. "And I would never put myself in a situation where I felt there was never something more to learn. I would still be pushing hard."

And this year's performances certainly back up his claims that he is pushing. Fine performances in Australia and Malaysia were underlined by another strong showing in Barcelona last week, where he punched above his weight to secure a fine sixth position.

"Yeah, I really got the best out of it," he says proudly.

"We beat the Renaults. And it was a great feeling for the team to score some points."

It might have been one of those performances that come from leftfield, but Rosberg is certainly developing a pedigree for this sort of thing. A few more giant-killing races and his positive reputation will have been very firmly cemented.

"Nico is definitely a more rounded performer this year," says Williams technical director Sam Michael. "But that's what I expected from him. If he wasn't on that path then he'd be unhappy with himself. But he's done a good job over the winter to think about everything. And I think he's better at prioritising things and using the people around him. He's getting better and better."

It certainly does seem as if the planets are slowly falling into line for young Rosberg. He's got the speed - he's fairly vanquished team-mate Wurz all season - possesses the mental acuity and has learned how to use the team to make him faster, a crucial concept that Michael Schumacher quickly took to heart along his path to greatness. Now he just needs some strong results to allow that momentum to keep gathering.

"I want to be at the front," he states with the closest he's got to passionate all interview. "But that's obvious. And I want to push to be the team's clear number one - even if they say publicly that it has two equal drivers. But that's just normal, too. I'm pushing as hard as I can with this team to move us to the front. But I know it needs time. And if you deserve it, you'll end up at the front some day."

SIDEBAR

Keke on Nico: a dad's perspective

Rosberg Sr on the importance of being happy, and missing his son

Keke and Nico Rosberg © LAT/XPB

"I still think that Nico is delivering on the promise he showed in Bahrain last year. And a lot of Formula 1's old guard will be going at the end of this year so Nico is very much of the new generation.

"One of the most important things he needs to maintain as an F1 driver is the sheer enjoyment of driving and competing - that's where your performance comes from. It doesn't come from the last 32 miles of testing or climbing walls or pumping iron. It comes from pure enjoyment; the sensation of driving. The happiness you get driving an F1 car gives you an extra edge.

"And why not win races and championships with Williams? They have all the equipment to get the job done. And that's their expectation, too. Is it realistic? Why not? There is enough funding at Williams for them to be able to do the job.

"The family doesn't see too much of Nico now that he's racing in F1. He's in his own little world and I don't know a lot of what's going on. I see that he's travelling and I know where he is, but that's about all. In fact, one of the best things to come out of his Barcelona testing accident was that he finished testing early and we actually had him at home for four or five days.

"He wasn't allowed to train much so I just went for walks with him and had a great chance to talk with him - something I hadn't done for many months so it was very refreshing. People think dad's calling the shots - but that's rubbish. I'm just a dad!"