Rosberg says fifth place was possible

The Williams driver, who ran second for a time after choosing to run a long opening stint, believes a fifth place would have been easily achievable had he not suffered from a balance issue with his car during the middle stages of the race.

"I really believe we could have been fifth, but things didn't go to well," said the German. "I had a good time early on, but after 10 laps or so, I started to experience a problem at the rear of the car which I've had all weekend.

"Something inexplicable would just happen and affect the balance, which caused a lot of oversteer. Oddly enough, it would then be okay again. As this was happening throughout much of the race, I couldn't really push and that really hurt me."

His team-mate Kazuki Nakajima, who had qualified 11th on the grid, had a more troublesome race.

After becoming involved in the first-lap pile-up that eliminated both Toro Rossos, Adrian Sutil and Jarno Trulli, the Japanese driver had to pit for a new nosecone at the end of the opening lap, dropping him to the tail of the field.

"Fortunately that didn't lose me too much time because the safety car was deployed, but my race was really over from then and I finished 13th.

"Our race pace was quite good, and that allowed me to get ahead of [Giancarlo] Fisichella, it's just quite disappointing though."