Rosberg says failure cost him top ten slot

The Williams driver will have to start tomorrow's race from 15th position after he was hit by a hydraulic failure during Q2.

"We had a difficult start to this weekend, but we've improved throughout the sessions and learnt a lot of things along the way," said Rosberg.

"We therefore weren't looking too bad for qualifying. I made a mistake on my fast lap in Q1 and lost two and a half tenths in one corner, so my Q1 time did not show the true potential of our car.

"We then had a good chance of making it into Q3, but a hydraulic problem meant I couldn't go out at all in Q2 which was disappointing. It's pretty interesting here tyre-wise as both are very soft on this track, but the harder ones were better for me today."

Teammate Kazuki Nakajima also endured a tough day and qualified down in 17th place.

"It was a difficult qualifying for me," he said. "Aside from plenty of traffic, I didn't really manage to find the right balance on my last set of option tyres. Both factors compromised my run.

"We now need to go through the data and work out what's happening in order to get the most out of the car for tomorrow."