Rosberg dispirited after poor qualifying

The Williams driver qualified in 15th position for the second event in a row and is expecting a difficult race tomorrow.

Rosberg admitted he is hoping for rain in order to have a better chance of achieving a better result.

"It's very dispiriting to be starting the race in 15th place like last weekend in Japan," said Rosberg. "I gave everything in the sessions and extracted the maximum out of the car, but it just didn't come together today. As a consequence, tomorrow's race will be difficult starting from this far back.

"Apparently it may rain, and if that happens, it may help us to achieve a better result. We will all be doing our best to have a stronger performance tomorrow."

Teammate Kazuki Nakajima completed a disappointing day for Williams, the Japanese qualifying down in 17th place.

"I knew it would be quite difficult today in qualifying from my experience during P3 this morning," said Nakajima. "There were some points on the track where I really needed to improve, but I didn't manage to make any headway during qualifying.

"Of course the outcome is not what I wanted, but I guess I now need to try harder to improve in the race itself."