F1 driver Nico Rosberg of Germany, a member of the AT&T Williams team, grew up with motor racing.

The son of 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg, he was already racing mini go-karts at 10. He won the French title in 1997.

In 2002, he competed in the Formula BMW series, winning nine races and the title.

At the end of his first season, he tested for the Williams-BMW team, becoming the youngest Fl driver ever. He is currently Alex Wurz's team-mate at Williams.

Mr Rosberg, who has notched two points in the current F1 season, gives his insights on how the notebook PC is critical to F1 racing.

What does the notebook PC do in starting the car?

You don't actually start the car with a laptop; you start the car from the back, by using a starter motor that gets the engine turning. There is no spark yet (at this point) so the data engineer checks all the engine pressures and values using a laptop.

When the engineers know that it's safe, the starter motor then starts the engine.

The process of checking all the data is really important because it's essential to make sure that everything is right.

The engine can only run in a precise area and that's why you use the laptop: to make sure it's all okay and that nothing is out of the ordinary.

Once the engine is running properly, everything is checked again, and the throttle can be controlled using a laptop to check that all those functions are okay.

What data do you look at on the car?

It's amazingly complicated, especially in testing. There are over 120 sensors on the car in testing, for example, and when you're out on track these feed back all the information that we look at.

There are two miles of cabling in the car, which gives you some idea of the degree of connectivity and dependency on onboard electronic systems.

The data gets sent to the garage even as I am driving, so if I have over-steered on a corner, my engineer will see it in real time, as I feel it.

It's that quick.

Does all this data help or is it frustrating?

It helps. It doesn't affect the driving, but it is essential for seeing the bigger picture. Once I send the information back, they look at it and can tell me to make some changes, but those changes are made by me on the steering wheel manually.

Do you just drive and forget about all the technology?

No, it really matters to me because that's where you can really make a difference. Everyone who drives in Fl is a great driver - that's why they have a seat.

So, to beat them you need something more. By using data and technology, by making the effort to understand it and to analyse it, that's where you can really make the difference to your performance and get an edge over others.

For example, if you compare your data to that of your team-mate, there will always be corners where he is faster than you. So, using the data, you can look at exactly how he's done it and copy (his technique) to improve your own performance.

What security do you have for all the data going from car to garage and back?

Security is very high.

Every team secures its networks and they make sure that data which everyone looks at closely can't be easily read by someone else.

Even I can't get onto the network without permission!

Outside of racing, do you use technology alot?

Not a huge amount but I do rely on it to keep in touch with my friends. I'm a bit hooked (as in, e-mail and chat) in the evenings because we all communicate on the Internet.