Born in Sweden and raised in Finland, Rosberg started his racing career in karting before graduating to Formula Vee in 1972.

He spent the remainder of the 1978 season with Theodore and ATS, winning the non-championship BRDC International Trophy with the former in his second Formula One appearance.

Rosberg was unable to defend his title in 1983 as Williams struggled to adapt to the turbo era, despite winning the Monaco Grand Prix and the final non-championship Race of Champions.

Outside of Formula One, Rosberg achieved multiple race wins in the World Sportscar Championship with Peugeot from 1990 to 1991, and was a race-winner in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft, competing from 1992 to 1995.

[4] Despite this, Williams was interested in Rosberg, with the retirement of 1980 World Champion Alan Jones leaving a seat open for the 1982 season.

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.

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.

To celebrate the victory, Frank Williams gave Rosberg two days off from testing and allowed him to smoke in the team mobile home.

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 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.

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.

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.

[3] 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.

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.

Jean-Pierre Van Rossem and Onyx), the same team that gave Rosberg's protégé JJ Lehto his debut in Formula One.

[3] But after two years with the marque and varied successes (two victories and a failed attempt at the 24 Hours of Le Mans), he moved on to the German Touring Car Championship, the DTM, driving for Mercedes-Benz and Opel.

Success, or even just scoring points, became harder with each passing season and Team Rosberg quit the series after their 2004 campaign, only to return in 2006, this time with Audi.

Rosberg later spent a long time managing his countrymen JJ Lehto and future world champion Mika Häkkinen.

In 1985, renowned Finnish actor Matti Pellonpää and his band released a song called "Keke Rosberg formula rock [fi]".