Rosberg wary of rivals hiding pace

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Nico Rosberg is wary Mercedes has yet to see the true pace of its rivals after Friday practice for the Canadian Grand Prix.

While Lewis Hamilton set the pace in both practice sessions on Friday, Sebastian Vettel was second fastest in FP2, a quarter of a second adrift. The two Red Bull drivers were a second off the pace in the same session but with Daniel Ricciardo admitting the upgraded Renault power unit had not been running at full performance Rosberg is keen to see Red Bull's hand.

"The long run is looking good, our car is looking good but Ferrari is looking close," Rosberg said. "It is always so difficult on Friday you never know what fuel levels they are running, how much engine power they are using. At Red Bull they had their engine turned down completely which didn’t show anything so let’s see."

Rosberg himself was half a second slower than team-mate Hamilton but took confidence from his race pace.

"Generally I feel good in the car. But getting the tyres working is not so straightforward here, so that needs some further analysis tonight. I lost most of my time in the first sector - possibly because of tyre temperatures.

"So, that part of the lap is the main area to work on and find some improvement for qualifying. The long runs have looked good so far, though."

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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.