Nico Rosberg gave Frank Williams considerable reason to smile by stunning the front-runners in practice for this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix lapping second-quickest to close friend and former karting rival
Lewis Hamilton as Sir Frank Williams celebrates 600 grands prix in the top flight.
The young German was on the pace throughout the opening day around the tight, tortuous and twisty streets of the Principality relishing the challenge that prioritises driver skill above any other variable. He ended the morning session lying fifth before improving three spots in the afternoon, and is clearly keen to atone for the disappointment of last year, when he qualified a superb fifth in Monaco, only to slip back to twelfth spot in the race as his strategy failed to pay dividends.
First of all, it's really nice to be driving here again because it's just a really fun track, the 22-year-old enthused at the end of practice. I was looking forward to this weekend because I thought we were going to have a good car here, and it now looks like we've arrived with a good set-up.
I was going well all day and felt comfortable in the car. I am also able to push quite hard, so I'm hoping that I can keep it up do a good job in qualifying and then have a good race. We worked on a few set-up variants and didn't finish the session using our optimum set-up, but we know where we need to go and we still have some reserves up our sleeves, so I am pretty happy with how things are looking.
Rosberg has finished three of the opening races of the 2008 season in the points including a rostrum in the curtain-raising Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne and a similar performance in Monaco this weekend can certainly not be discounted. Indeed, such a result would pay fitting tribute to team founder and co-owner
Williams, who has become this year the longest-serving entrant in
Formula 1 history.
