Williams keen to retain Rosberg

Sir Frank Williams has again expressed his desire to hold onto Nico Rosberg for next season. The German driver has been strongly linked with the McLaren team recently and is a likely contender to partner Lewis Hamilton in the event of the Woking team dropping Heikki Kovalainen for 2010.

With Kovalainen having performed well to drive second on the grid and then to a fourth place finish in Valencia on Sunday, Team Principal Martin Whitmarsh has explained that the Finn is currently doing everything necessary to retain his seat but must display consistency until the end of the season.

With Rosberg out of contract with Williams at the end of season and, as a German, attractive to Mercedes-Benz and McLaren, his current boss summed up the situation. "He is very much on our list," team owner Williams told Autosport. "I would have thought he must be on the McLaren list if they do drop Kovalainen and I think Norbert (Haug, Vice President for Mercedes-Benz Motorsport) would love a German driver - we will see."

Having signed Rosberg as a new Formula One rookie alongside Mark Webber in 2006, the committed Monaco resident has remained loyal to his team. "Nico is, on any three or five laps, the most exciting driver on the track," Williams continued. "He digs himself out of some holes that we put him in sometimes, comes by three places up at the end of the first lap.

"He is single-minded, chirpy, a little arrogant - which is good - and he is always very good with the promo people - never an objection, he is very good; it won't be months away, it will be the next few weeks where we get one position sorted out and hopefully, soon after, the second one."

With new drivers often a risk, as proved many times in the sport, Sir Frank admits that World Champion Hamilton would be a tough opponent for former karting team-mate Nico: "They all make mistakes. Lewis made fewer than anybody else but someone like him comes down from heaven only once every twenty years."

Source: GP Update