'Good to be back in the car' - Rosberg

Nico Rosberg says it was "good to be back in the car" two days after his Spanish Grand Prix collision with team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Mercedes is running Rosberg and Esteban Ocon during the in-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with Rosberg driving on the opening day. Having retired on the opening lap of Sunday's race the championship leader was pleased with the mileage on Tuesday after completing 119 laps.

“Yeah it’s been a good day," Rosberg said. "Good to be back in the car because it’s my only test day of the whole year so it’s really important to make the most of it and try and learn some stuff. So it has been good.

“We tried some mechanical stuff on the front suspension, then we tried some stuff on the brakes ... just some different things to try and make progress because we never test. We need to use days like this, they are very, very important.”

Despite Sunday's retirement, Rosberg says he is already looking forward to Monaco where he has won on the last three occasions.

“Of course I’m confident going there, yeah. I look forward to it and I would like to win the race.

“For sure we’re keeping an eye on our competition - Ferrari and Red Bull - but we think we’ll be quick so that should be OK.”

REPORT: Vettel tops opening day of Barcelona test

Spanish Grand Prix - Quotes of the weekend

DRIVER RATINGS: Spanish Grand Prix

Technical gallery: Spain

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

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.