Nico Rosberg says he needs to work on his qualifying pace after finishing second practice for the Spanish Grand Prix in third place.
Having topped the times in FP1, Rosberg was unable to repeat that performance on the medium compound tyre in the second session, finishing over 0.75s slower than team-mate Lewis Hamilton. With Sebastian Vettel second fastest in FP2 and also outqualifying his countryman in Bahrain, Rosberg says he needs to try and find more time over one lap.
“It’s always a compromise between long run and short run, set-up wise and everything," Rosberg said. "Especially in these conditions, it’s very hot out there so very tough on the tyres on a long run. But for sure I need to work on my one lap pace for tomorrow.
“Mainly it was that I worked the tyres too hard on the out lap, so starting the flying lap they were just too hot.”
However, Rosberg was happy with Mercedes' race pace despite a downshift issue in FP2.
“It’s just some small problems, we need to fine-tune some of those things. We were trying some new settings on the downshifts and that meant when I was pulling for the downshifts there was a delay, it didn’t go in straight away. That was just a bit awkward so we came back on those.
"All in all it was a good day, I have to say for the race especially. It was looking pretty good, especially compared to Ferrari which is important and compared to Lewis it was close. On one lap I still have some work to do.”
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