Minor teams: 1978–1981

Rosberg in the Wolf pits in 1979.

Rosberg had a relatively late start to his Formula One career, debuting at the age of 29 after stints in Formula Vee, Formula Super Vee, Can-Am, Formula Atlantic, Formula Pacific and Formula Two, then "feeder" series to Formula One. He raced for Fred Opert, his American patron. His first Formula One drive was with the Theodore team during the 1978 season.^[5] He immediately caught the attention of the Formula One paddock with a superb drive in the non-Championship BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone in just his second race with the team, emerging victorious after many of the big names had been caught out by a tremendous downpour. Rosberg was not able to qualify for a race afterwards, and was signed by another uncompetitive team, ATS, for three races after the Theodore team scrapped its unreliable car design. He returned to Theodore after they acquired chassis from the Wolf Formula One team, but these were also uncompetitive and Rosberg returned to ATS to end the season.

He next emerged with the Wolf team, midway through the 1979 season. However, the team was having difficulty staying solvent, and Rosberg had problems in finishing races. Rosberg soon had to change teams again when Wolf left Formula One, and signed with Fittipaldi Automotive which had bought the remains of Walter Wolf's squad. He secured his first two point-scoring results in the 1980 season, including a sensational podium at the season-opening race at Buenos Aires, but the uncompetitiveness of the Fittipaldi car meant that Rosberg often failed to finish or qualify. 1981 was worse as he failed to score at all.

The sharp end – Williams: 1982–1985

Rosberg won the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix in a Williams FW09.

Despite this, Williams was interested in Rosberg, with the retirement of 1980 World Champion Alan Jones leaving a seat open for the 1982 season.^[5] Given a competitive car, Rosberg had a highly successful year. He consistently scored points and earned his first victory in the Swiss Grand Prix at Dijon-Prenois late that year^[6] (despite being called the "Swiss Grand Prix", the race was held in France due to Switzerland's ban on motor racing in effect since the 1955 Le Mans disaster).

In a year where no driver won more than two races, with Ferrari's season marred by the death of Gilles Villeneuve at Zolder and the career-ending injuries to Didier Pironi at Hockenheim, and the turbocharged Brabham-BMW and Renault cars suffering from poor reliability (and not helped by Brabham continually changing between the Ford V8 and the BMW turbo), consistency won Rosberg the Drivers' Championship. This was despite his Williams FW07C using the normally-aspirated Ford DFY V8 engine which was considered outdated and out-matched against the vastly more powerful turbo cars. Rosberg won the championship with a five-point lead over Pironi, who had missed the last four races of the season due to injuries sustained at the German Grand Prix. Rosberg's 1982 Championship proved to be the last World Championship win for the old Cosworth DFV engine which had been introduced to Formula One by Lotus in 1967 (the DFY was a development of the DFV). To celebrate the victory, Frank Williams gave Rosberg two days off from testing and allowed him to smoke in the team mobile home.^[7] As a result of winning just one race in his title winning season Rosberg equalled the record set by Mike Hawthorn in 1958 for the fewest number wins scored by a driver during a World Championship winning season, a record he still jointly holds with Hawthorn as of 2023.^[8]

Rosberg driving for Williams at the 1985 German Grand Prix.

Rosberg's post-championship years would be hamstrung by both uncompetitive chassis from Williams, and the powerful but unreliable Honda turbo engine. For his title defense in 1983, Rosberg was again using the reliable Ford DFY V8. However, by this time, the reliability of the Ferrari, Renault and BMW turbo engines was starting to match their speed and power output. Rosberg still put his Williams FW08 on pole for the opening race of the season in Brazil (where he was disqualified from 2nd place because he was push started in the pits after he was forced to abandon his car in his pit bay due to a fuel vapor fire), and then won both the non-championship Race of Champions at Brands Hatch and in Monaco thanks to a choice of slicks at the start when all others started on wets, but it was increasingly obvious that without a turbocharged engine, results would be scarce. To that end, Frank Williams concluded a deal to run the Honda V6 turbo engine in his cars. Honda had come back into Formula One that year with the Spirit team and results had been slow with unreliability, but they were enthusiastic about joining Williams who had a reputation as a Championship-winning team. Rosberg and teammate Jacques Laffite first got their Honda turbos in the season ending South African Grand Prix at Kyalami and immediately the new Williams FW09 was on the pace. Rosberg finished in 5th place to give him 5th place in the championship.

Despite the powerful Honda engines, Williams and Rosberg struggled in 1984 mostly due to the FW09B chassis not being rigid enough to handle the power delivery of the 850 bhp (634 kW; 862 PS) V6. The Finn managed to tame both the car and engine long enough to win the Dallas Grand Prix,^[9] but his only other podium for the year was a second at the season opener in Brazil (the third time in succession he finished second in Brazil, but the only one from which he was not disqualified). After a frustrating year he finished the championship in eighth place with 20.5 points.

In November 1984 following the Formula One season, Rosberg, along with fellow Formula One drivers Niki Lauda (the 1984 World Champion), Andrea de Cesaris and François Hesnault, travelled to Australia for the non-championship 1984 Australian Grand Prix at the Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne. Rosberg managed to qualify 4th in his Ralt RT4 Ford despite spending most of the day with fellow aviation enthusiast Lauda (his teammate for the race) attending an air show at the nearby Essendon Airport. After an early race dice with Lauda and a clash with Terry Ryan while lapping the young Australian which put him off the short 1.609 km (1.000 mi) circuit, Rosberg went on to finish 2nd behind the Ralt RT4 Ford of Brazilian driver Roberto Moreno who won his 3rd Australian Grand Prix in 4 years (having also won in 1981 and 1983).

1985 would prove better for both Rosberg and Williams. The Finn had a new teammate in Nigel Mansell and the all carbon fibre Williams FW10 chassis was a big improvement over the FW09B. For the first few races the team used the 1984 engines until Honda introduced an upgraded version which improved power delivery, fuel economy and most importantly, reliability. Rosberg used the new engine to good effect, winning the Detroit Grand Prix and claiming pole in the next two races in France at the Paul Ricard Circuit and the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Rosberg's pole-winning lap at Silverstone created history when he lapped the 4.719 km (2.932 mi) circuit in 1:05.591 for an average speed of 259.01 km/h (160.94 mph). This would remain the single fastest lap of a circuit in Formula One until broken by Williams driver Juan Pablo Montoya at the 2002 Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

Keke Rosberg's fifth and final Grand Prix victory came at the 1985 Australian Grand Prix on the brand new Adelaide Street Circuit. As it was the final race of the season, it was also Rosberg's final race for Williams. Keke gave the winners trophy to his race engineer, Frank Dernie. The win enhanced Rosberg's reputation as a street circuit specialist, as four of his five championship Grand Prix wins (Monaco, Dallas, Detroit and Adelaide) had come on street circuits. Rosberg handled the 35°C heat better than most and won by 43 seconds from the Ligier Renaults of Jacques Laffite and Philippe Streiff.

Just as the Honda engine began producing regular results, Rosberg decided to leave Williams at the end of 1985 and signed for McLaren, winners of the 1984 and 1985 Drivers' and Constructors' championships. The Williams-Honda team would go on to dominate Grand Prix racing in 1986 and through 1987.

The final year – McLaren: 1986

At the time, Rosberg's move to McLaren for the 1986 season had seemed a master stroke as they were the championship team of the previous two seasons, having done so (especially in 1984) in dominating fashion.^[5] However, the 1986 McLaren was now somewhat underpowered compared to its rivals, and Rosberg, was soundly beaten by teammate, 1985 World Champion Alain Prost (the McLaren MP4/2C had been designed by John Barnard to suit the smoother style of Niki Lauda and Alain Prost, while Rosberg had never shed the ground effects style of late braking and throwing the car into a corner. It was not until it became known Barnard was leaving for Ferrari that the designer allowed Rosberg to fundamentally change his cars set up to suit his style. Ironically this coincided with Rosberg's only pole position of the season in Germany). On top of that, the fatal crash of Rosberg's close friend Elio de Angelis while testing a Brabham at the Paul Ricard circuit in France in May 1986 deeply affected him and he retired at the end of the season. He would later claim that he retired "too soon" .

Keke Rosberg dominated the final race of his Formula One career, the 1986 Australian Grand Prix, though he did not win. While holding a 30-second lead over Nelson Piquet (his replacement at Williams), he had a rear tyre let go on lap 62. Thinking the noise from the back of his McLaren was engine related, he shut the engine off and pulled off the circuit, only to find when he got out and checked that all he needed to do was drive back to the pits to change tyres. However, he later revealed that he would never have won anyway, that he planned to give best to Alain Prost in the Frenchman's bid for back-to-back World Championships (Prost needed to win the race with Nigel Mansell finishing no better than 4th to claim the championship, while Rosberg had dropped out of title contention some races before). As it turned out, Prost won the race and the title, and a lap after Rosberg's retirement Mansell suffered the same fate as his former teammate, though in much more spectacular fashion.

Rosberg, who had made up his mind in mid-1984 that he would only race for two more years (but did not announce it publicly until Germany 1986), had no regrets about leaving Williams and joining McLaren at a time when the Honda engine was starting to come on strong, while the Porsche built TAG engine (and the 3 season old MP4/2) was starting to show its age. In an interview following his retirement announcement, Rosberg said that he was glad he left Williams when he did, stating that had he stayed with them he might have quit Formula One early in the 1986 season after Frank Williams' pre-season accident (in which he suffered a spinal cord injury which left him a tetraplegic) had left someone in a position of authority within the team who he said was one of the reasons he had decided to leave Williams, adding "We simply could not stand each other". While Rosberg did not name the person, it was generally believed to be Williams head designer and Technical Director Patrick Head, who had taken over the day-to-day running of the team while Frank Williams recovered from his accident.

Career summary

Complete European Formula Two Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete Formula One World Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

^† Did not finish, but was classified as he had completed more than 90% of the race distance.
^‡ Race was stopped with less than 75% of laps completed, half points awarded.

Formula One non-championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete World Sportscar Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1991	Peugeot Talbot Sport	Yannick Dalmas Pierre-Henri Raphanel	Peugeot 905	C1	68	DNF	DNF
Source:[15]

Complete Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete International Touring Car Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)