Sure, the same for me. What i do not understand at all is Rosberg written in the same sentence as the two other drivers. There´s a huge diference between Kubica/Button to Rosberg. Maybe because this way some will finally feel confortable saying MS has beaten a great driver?

Think he agreed to come back without it?? Not a chance. He wouldn't know how to be in a team without it.

Totally agree.

When has he not had #1 status? Never.

He spat the dummy when he broke his leg they had to force him back to support Irvine. If he had come back at when he was physically able - and supported the team - Irvine would have the title.

If - and it is a HUGE IF - the team treats them as equals Rosberg has a chance to shine. If they concentrate it on MS as Ross will want to - then he is screwed

Williams is a team that was in a total mess.. questionable and bizarre decisions were made in all aspects, and that includes putting a driver they didn't want in the car just so it could have an engine (a crap one, in 2009, apparently)

IMO it's very hard to assess exactly where Rosberg stands in all of this... apart he's clearly much better than Kaz Nakajima.

With Brawn and Mercedes we will finally know, even if Rosberg is going to play second fiddle to Schuey, we'll still finally know where he's at.

this no1 status is bullshit.
Rubens was equal with jenson this season. Yet he still bitched that jenson had better treatment.

All of schumacher teammates were never close to him. Once in a year could threaten him and that was it.

Rosberg is going to be beaten fair and square.
Stop this ridiculous non equal treatment talk. please.

you do realize that in 1999 Schumy was out of later half of the season, isnt it!

And Schumy beat Nelson in 1991, He outqualified Nelson 4 out of 5 races in a car which he had never raced or tested properly!

I agree with the first half of your comment.

I think Nico is one of the most underrated drivers in the F1 currently. He didn't have a car to show his real performance. Like Button in 2007 and 2008. Nearly everybody write off him. But he bounced back and won the championship. Nico can be the same, and I think he will be even better driver than Jenson, IMO. We'll see, it's too early to predict anything. We have still 78 days...

Rubens had at least one race ruined by a 3-stop strategy, something that played straight into Button's hands... in my mind there is no question he wasn't treated as well as Button was..

Of course, I would have put the priority on Button as well..

Barrichello is a cry-baby, but there's a bit of honesty behind his rants IMHO..

He's a seven time World Champion with 91 Grands Prix victories.

He's the most succesful man ever to sit in a Formula One car.

Rosberg is a guy who has shown flashes of speed, crashed plenty and generally shown himself to be a competent F1 driver, but not the next Vettel.

Schumacher will become defacto number one, even if they're equal.

It's a shit deal for Nico, but who ever said F1 was nice?

Poor Nico. His plan backfired ROYALLY.

There's an excellent story about Nelson Piquet at his last ever race, the 1991 Australian Grand Prix.

He was determined not to be outqualified again by Schumacher.

So he put the race set up to one side, and concentrated on nailing Schumacher in qualifying.

Surely enough, he did, by a small margin.

Afterwards Piquet was puffing out his chest, it is written, satisfied that he still had his natural speed.

Apparently his engineer didn't have the heart to tell him that Schumacher had missed a gear on his fastest lap...

that excuse is wearing thin , please bring something else on the table

yes i remember reading that
it was excellent

I think it's not so much they are underestimating Nico as they are overestimating MS.

If you looked at the stats table provided, you would see that it only compares those races wher they competed.
Nelson beat Schumi on points. No doubt.
As soon as they start giving points for qualifying, well Trulli would be champion for sure..

If it's true that Rosberg-daddy wanted to avoid facing Hamilton, I'd like to see his face now that his son has to face Schumacher

There's a German saying: "Vom Regen in die Traufe." ~ "out of the rain but beneath the eaves".. or smth like that in English ;)

"Out of the pan and into the fire" might be a similar English expression.

Brundle was a solid and consistent driver. But especially in the terms of speed, schumacher literally wiped the floor with him. Brundle was beaten in Qualifying by 16 to 0 and was typically a second slower than Schumacher.

Trulli on the other hand was on par with Alonso.

What worries me about Rosberg is he wasn't brilliant in any races I remember. He was good, consistent even - but no flashes of brilliance. A great driver does great things and is noticed generally very soon. Such as Vettel in the STR or to some extent even Kobayashi in Toyota.

Can't recall similar flashes of brilliance from Rosberg - so my take is that he will be a consistent driver but not a great one. The unknown in the equation is how good Michael still is. If he is closer to 2006 levels (give or take some % points on the downside) he will beat Rosberg.

Additionally, relationships and work ethic will matter towards getting people to rally behind them, that I am 100% Michael is a class act par NONE in the current crop of F1 drivers...

The jury is out there , but the chances are Michael will come out as the winner.

If I had to pick someone who can play F1 politics at same level or even better than
Michael I'd pick Keke, so I wouldn't be that sure that Nico will be a number 2 driver.

With a less than good car it's not too easy to win. I remember of one mistake from him in Singapore, but we could see a mistake from Big Lewis as well. Nico is a great driver, Ron Dennis wanted to catch him several years ago. But in an underdog-car, he couldn't show his real performance for you or any other members on this forum. Jenson was racing for the 'great' 17th-18th places in 2007 and 2008. And why? Because Honda weren't able to give him a solid car. And a lot of people forgot Jenson and they were all surprised at the start of the season that 'who is this guy?'. Nico is the same.
Vettel was great in the STR only in wet first time. But don't forget that 2008 STR-car was even better than Red Bull-cars, and etc. And if he had a great car he could make some mistakes (Australia, Malaysia, Monaco, Singapore - are they the sign of a great driver? No, but despite this he was the no:1 at nearly every poll instead of Jenson.)
Actually, Nico did only one brilliant thing in this season, it was in the Q2 of the qualification in Singapore. But this and his consistency convinced me that he could be a champion. Yes, even alongside 'great Schumi' as well. Just watch and learn

I think it's a great opportunity for both Michael and Nico.

Michael will get to race more in F1. He will get to finish off his F1 career in a respectable organisation. If he wins a few races then that's a bonus.

Nico will get to race in the same team with the man who is statistically the most successful F1 driver ever. In my opinion Nico can win a lot in this. He's already one hell of a F1 racer but he can become better by learning from Schumacher as surely there is still much more to learn for Nico. Speed-wise I don't think Nico is much behind, if at all, but he can learn about many other things, and he should use the opportunity to learn as much as he can from Schumacher. Nico is a smart guy and I think this is what he plans to do. I hope they can maintain a friendly relationship to each other so there could be good teamwork between them.

I have no idea who will be faster and who will finish the season on top of the points chart. I can only say I think it will be closer than many seem to think.

I hope the team will give them both a fair chance at success and if one will become #1 and the other #2 then it will be down to pure performance on-track and to nothing else.

Anyhow, it will be interesting to watch what will happen in this team in 2010 and I would hope more people would speak of it in a positive tone and not make it sound so negative

What do you define as the vast majority?

Of the races they bothed finished it's 4-3 to MS. I'd say that's pretty close in anyone's book.

Let me remind you that Nico Rosberg showed brilliance in his first-ever F1 Grand Prix

How early did you want him to show it? I think it can't be shown much earlier than that.

I love that ongoing Brundle revisionism here. A guy who was outqualified 0-16 and was fired because of his underperforming is spin doctored into a tough Schumacher challenger.

It´s no secret that Schumacher was faster in qualifying, the problem was that Brundle was often as fast
(if not faster) in the races. Check out Spa, who´s the guy behind Schumacher and passes when
he felt a little bit too much heat and spun off? Yes, correct! It was Brundle!

The same scums that all of a sudden kicked out Trulli in 2004 and told Piquet Jnr to crash deliberatly
was the ones that thought Brundle was a little bit too good.

We are talking Spa 1992 now, right? The race which was won by Schumacher, some 46 seconds ahead of his teammate Brundle?

Fastest lap of that very race: Michael Schumacher with 1.53,791, some 3.6 (!!!) seconds faster than the best lap of his teammate Brundle.

You chose a really great example to prove your point of Brundle being 'as fast' as Schumacher in the races.

Yes he was brilliant in his debut Grand Prix but in that race Rosberg set a promise he never really forfilled.

Britney will get beaten senseless.

Great comeback. Real men use fastest lap stats.

Lay off the personal attacks and back to Schumacher v Rosberg please

Some said Michael will be de facto No.1, I believe that, but in case if Nico has in his contract other phases...? Like he is No.1, hopeful for the Mercedes? I can imagine hat Zeche never expected that Michael wil be back so soon...

I'm cheering for Rosberg. I think he'll up his game now that he has the keys to a potential race winning machine. I'm not expecting him to go 34.5 to 0 against his latest team mate. Schumacher might be a bit rusty but I expect the Mercedes to be consistently in the points.

It is Shumacher and Ross Brawn. They redefined the meaning of No.1 and team orders.

Nico is stuffed. He will either be beaten on track or off track.

Excuses coming pretty quick aren't they?

Oh c'mon, I couldn't care less about Britney. I just think he is in for a bad year.

EDIT: On the other hand, do you really believe MS would set aside his pjs and flip flops if good old Ross didn't make sure he would get whatever he wanted?

So why invoke the Schumi team orders crap. If you don't care about Nico, don't bother commenting about his situation.

I do that because it comes along with MS&Ross. Whether you like it or not.

Do you really believe Ross would risk all on a 41 year old driver that hasn't raced for 3 years and give him automatic number one status out of familiarity or love?

Easy to type that stuff isn't it?

I don't know, neither do you.

We are settled then, let's see what the year brings.

I agree about that; but Williams has always been a badly run team. They fall out with drivers, sack their best ones, make bizarre management changes, etc. I have never thought much of the team.

As for Rosberg, I think he's decent. He would probably have won the championship if he'd beet in Button's car last season. But that could be said of many drivers.

Regarding number 1 status in the team, that will CLEARLY go to Michael. It won't be as blatant as in the Ferrari era, but more in-line with Button/Barrichello last season.

whoever faster than his teammate will be No. 1. And Michael will be No 1 because he is always faster than any of his teammates.

Very true, but it'll be interesting to see how large the gap is.

Only in qualifying. Alonso lack consistency in the one lap system back then but he generally dominated Trulli when his car allowed him in races.

So what leverage exactly does Keke have ??

If you want to be a politician, you're gonna have to do better than bluff.

Bottom line: If Nico shows competitive speed, he will get the support. But no amount of politicking in the background will make any difference if the speed is not there. Basically he will be overlooked then, because Mercedes will realize all their hopes rest on Schumacher's shoulders. Rosberg may have had the upper hand against Nakajima, but against Schumacher, he may as well start over. Keke can't change any of that.


Cooper

And I said he gets treated equal or number 1 even if he is not so good?

I am not a MS fan at all. I think that he had at least 20 of his wins given to him by teamates. But after saying that MS is fast and Rosberg is going find out just how fast MS is and we are going to see how that Rosberg is way overrated.

At least 20?? You are deranged. He gave away more than he received.


Cooper