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Mercedes signs Rosberg for F1 team

German Formula One driver Nico Rosberg on Monday confirmed he will race for the new team Mercedes Grand Prix team next season.

Published: 23 November 2009 17:53 CET

Mercedes signs Rosberg for F1 team

Photo: DPA

The 24-year-old, son of former world champion Keke Rosberg of Finland, raced for Williams between 2006 and 2009 but announced he was leaving the British team after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix earlier this month where he finished ninth.

“I am very pleased that I will be in Mercedes’ cockpit for the start of the 2010 Grand Prix season,” said Rosberg.

“No other brand in Formula One has such a long and successful tradition. I am very proud that I will race for the new team from the start and look forward to working with Ross Brawn.”

The German finished seventh in this season’s world drivers’ championship and his best result was second in the Singapore Grand Prix of 2008. Since his Formula One debut in Bahrain in 2006, Rosberg has yet to win a Grand Prix race. With a second-place and one third-place finish his best in 70 starts in four years of racing, victories are his goal.

“The fact that we will restart in Formula One with such a talented and pleasant driver is great news for us,” said the head of Mercedes, Norbert Haug. “Nico is very ambitious, so are we and I am looking forward to working together with him.”

Mercedes’s team boss Ross Brawn, who masterminded all of Michael Schumacher’s seven world titles, said he is delighted to have Rosberg on board.

“After four years in Formula One, I would count Nico Rosberg as an experienced driver,” Brawn told German newspaper Bild.

Brawn said he is not in a rush to complete the team’s lineup, following world champion Jenson Button’s defection to McLaren, but Nick Heidfeld is a possible signing to take the last remaining cockpit berth.

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From lizards to water, eco-bumps snag Tesla's giant Berlin car factory

Tesla's gigafactory outside the doors of Berlin. dpa-Zentralbild | Patrick Pleul

“When I saw on TV that the Tesla factory was going to be built here, I couldn’t believe it,” said Steffen Schorch, driving his trusty German-made car.

The 60-year-old from Erkner village in the Berlin commuter belt has become one of the faces of the fight against the US auto giant’s first European factory, due to open in the Brandenburg region near Berlin in July.

“Tesla needs far too much water, and the region does not have this water,” said the environmental activist, a local representative of the Nabu ecologist campaign group.

Announced in November 2019, Tesla’s gigafactory project was warmly welcomed as an endorsement of the “Made in Germany” quality mark – but was immediately met with opposition from local residents.

Demonstrations, legal action, open letters – residents have done everything in their power to delay the project, supported by powerful
environmental campaign groups Nabu and Gruene Liga.

Tesla was forced to temporarily suspend forest clearing last year after campaigners won an injunction over threats to the habitats of resident lizards and snakes during their winter slumber.

READ MORE: Is Germany’s Volkswagen becoming ‘the new Tesla’ as it ramps up e-vehicle production?

And now they have focused their attention on water consumption – which could reach up to 3.6 million cubic metres a year, or around 30 percent of the region’s available supply, according to the ZDF public broadcaster.

The extra demand could place a huge burden on a region already affected by water shortages and hit by summer droughts for the past three years.

Local residents and environmentalists are also concerned about the impact on the wetlands, an important source of biodiversity in the region.

Tesla Street

“The water situation is bad, and will get worse,” Heiko Baschin, a spokesman for the neighbourhood association IG Freienbrink, told AFP.

Brandenburg’s environment minister Axel Vogel sought to play down the issue, saying in March that “capacity has not been exceeded for now”.

But the authorities admit that “the impact of droughts is significant” and have set up a working group to examine the issue in the long term.

The gigafactory is set to sprawl over 300 hectares – equivalent to approximately 560 football fields – southwest of the German capital.

Tesla is aiming to produce 500,000 electric vehicles a year at the plant, which will also be home to “the largest battery factory in the world”,
according to group boss Elon Musk.

In a little over a year and a half, swathes of coniferous forest have already been cleared to make way for vast concrete rectangles on a red earth base, accessed via the already iconic Tesla Strasse (Tesla Street).

German bureaucracy

The new site still has only provisional construction permits, but Tesla has been authorised by local officials to begin work at its own risk.

Final approval depends on an assessment of the project’s environmental impact – including the issue of water.

In theory, if approval is not granted, Tesla will have to dismantle the entire complex at its own expense.

But “pressure is being exerted (on the regulatory authorities), linked to Tesla’s significant investment”, Gruene Liga’s Michael Greschow told AFP.

In early April, Tesla said it was “irritated” by the slow pace of German bureaucracy, calling for exceptions to the rules for projects that help the environment.

Economy Minister Peter Altmaier agreed in April that his government “had not done enough” to reduce bureaucracy, lauding the gigafactory as a “very important project”.

Despite Germany’s reputation for efficiency, major infrastructure projects are often held up by bureaucracy criticised as excessive by the business community.

Among the most embarrassing examples are Berlin’s new airport which opened last October after an eight-year delay and Stuttgart’s new train station, which has been under construction since 2010.

Brandenburg’s economy minister, Joerg Steinbach, raised the possibility in February that the Tesla factory could be delayed beyond its July planned opening for the same reason.

SEE ALSO: Tesla advertises over 300 jobs for new Gigafactory near Berlin

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