Nico Rosberg admitted that he was unable to match team-mate Lewis Hamilton during qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix but was happy to join his championship rival on the front row despite mistakes on both his qualifying runs in Q3.
The Mercedes AMG PETRONAS driver ended 0.414 seconds behind Hamilton, and despite making a mistake at the final corner, which luckily wasn’t big enough to deny him a front row start, having been fifth after the first runs following a bigger mistake at turn six.
Rosberg feels the Sepang International Circuit gives opportunities to overtake and the German will be looking to do just that on Sunday to try and extend his race winning run to four races.
“Congrats to Lewis for the pole,” said Rosberg. “He did a better job today. I was closer to him on my last lap but then I lost a couple of tenths in the last corner, which was a pity.
“I can be happy with a front row start as we have seen this year that there are some opportunities at the start and qualifying is not quite so important anymore – especially at a track like this where you can overtake.
“So, overall I’m quite confident for tomorrow. I hope we can give our Malaysian friends from Petronas and the whole country a great race.”