One way or another, 2010 is going to be a big year for this young German.

After an excellent 2009 season where he scored all of Williams’ 34.5 points and regularly featured in the top 8 during qualifying and races, Nico signed for what he believed was the Brawn team and a place alongside ’09 champ Jensen Button, but not a month after the deal was announced, Mercedes bought the championship winning Brawn team, and then Button moved to McLaren.

So who would Nico’s new partner be?

Michael Schumacher, no less, the 7 time champion and the most successful driver in the history of Formula One.

This changes everything for Rosberg, had it been Button he was partnered with, the expectations would have been higher, for Button is not yet regarded as a true great. Rosberg was expected to push him hard and quite possibly beat him, but with Schumacher, the pressure is eased somewhat.

2010 will now be much more of a learning year for Rosberg, nobody expects Schumacher to be beaten by anybody, but it will be difficult for Nico to establish any sort of authority in the Mercedes team, up against the devastating duo of Schumacher and Ross Brawn.

Felipe Massa showed that Schumacher can be matched, throughout the 2006 season Massa’s pace was very close to that of the 7 time champion, and even beat him occasionally, but all the while Massa was learning from Schumacher and was a better driver for it.

Nico needs to follow a similar pattern, there is nobody better to learn from. Schumacher is legendary for his attention to detail, to minimise the things that could go wrong and to maximise the things that can go well, and to get his team working around him.

Nico, of course, has time on his side, not yet 25 and already into his fifth season as a grand prix driver, he has matured into a fast, intelligent racer who has showed spectacular race consistency and a great aptitude for driving through the pack, and no doubt, alongside Schumacher, will only get better.

His four seasons at Williams have shown him everything, racing at the front, racing at the back, racing through the pack, long heavy, mentally tough one stop strategies to all guns blazing three stoppers, consistent point scoring to consistent retirements, it has been a very through apprenticeship and now it is time for Rosberg to become one of the big names on the grid.

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