'Ferrari seems to be very close' - Rosberg

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Nico Rosberg is wary of Ferrari's pace following Friday practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel led team-mate Kimi Raikkonen in FP1, before Rosberg set the pace in the second practice session. Raikkonen was again second fastest - 0.25s slower than Rosberg - and the championship leader believes Ferrari is closer in Spain than it was at the last race in Russia.

“Good start to the weekend," Rosberg said. "Of course it has been difficult because in winter testing we do thousands of laps here but it’s 20C on the tarmac and now it’s 40C on the tarmac and it’s just a different world.

"The car is different, its handling, much more difficult to drive, lots to adapt. But it was all OK today with good practice for the qualifying, for the race and everything.

"The car is looking good, Ferrari seems to be very close, I think Kimi was only 0.2s away or something so we definitely need to make sure we get everything out of it. Lewis as well was quick, he just ended up with traffic so the lap time is not relevant, but I’m optimistic.”

And Rosberg admits he is struggling slightly with the handling of his Mercedes despite the headline lap time in FP2.

“It’s not always [a good feeling], it comes and goes. That’s always the challenge every weekend to try and get the car first of all to my liking. That’s the process, Friday is seldom the case - today wasn’t the case - but that’s normal and I’m optimistic for the rest of the weekend.

"Just study, study. I need to work at it, a lot of homework tonight, just trying to find all those hundreths of a second out of it and then ready to go for tomorrow. But it’s been a decent start.”

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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.