Rosberg blames technical problem

The Williams driver failed to make it past the first qualifying segment after losing power during his final run.

Rosberg will start from 17th position, and he reckons he is in for a tough race.

"I had a technical problem on the car which lost me a lot of straight line speed, up to 20km/h, so the session was disappointing," said Rosberg. "It was going well this morning, the car was really comfortable and I was looking forward to a good qualifying session.

"From 17th on the grid, it's going to be tough, but we'll try anyway. I have been really on it this weekend and we were expecting to do better today. Let's hope we can get something more out of tomorrow at the team's home race."

Alex Wurz enjoyed a better day, making it to Q2 for the first time in four races.

The Austrian finished in 13th place.

"I think I squeezed quite a bit out of my car today," he said. "My fastest lap wasn't too bad, although I think I could have gained another half a tenth in the last sector. I cannot be happy with 13th because you need to be a bit further up the grid to make it easier to score points.

"It's going to be a hard race as everyone is so close at the moment. Strategy here is going to be similar to what it was in Magny-Cours, which means that most teams are going to be doing pretty much the same thing. I need to have an aggressive start tomorrow and will give everything I can. I am a fighter."