Wehrlein 'ready' to take Rosberg seat

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Pascal Wehrlein says he is "ready" to take Nico Rosberg's seat at Mercedes despite only having one year of F1 racing under his belt.

The Mercedes youngster won the DTM title in 2015 and was then handed a Manor race seat this year, impressing in his debut season as he scored the team's only point in Austria and reached Q2 on four occasions. Wehrlein also carried out a lot of the 2017 tyre testing for Mercedes in conjunction with Pirelli this year.

With Rosberg making the shock decision to retire after winning this year's championship, Mercedes has a seat available and Wehrlein says he is prepared to make the step up.

"One season in F1 is not a lot but I feel ready for the job and confident," said Wehrlein said at the Autosport Awards. "I'm sure Toto [Wolff]'s phone is overheating after Friday!

"I've done most days with the 2017 tyres and I think it's very important to have that experience."

Reflecting on his season as a whole, Wehrlein says it shouldn't be overlooked that he had to adapt quickly having raced in DTM before his debut year in F1.

"It's been a fantastic season for me. Many highlights, many times in Q2, one point in Austria and especially after three years in DTM coming back to single seaters there were many things to learn for me."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.