Rosberg elated with Mercedes progress

The German, who enjoyed a strong outing in the previous race in China, kept his momentum going in today's qualifying to put on his best performance of the season.

"I am happy for sure," said Rosberg. "It is really nice to see the progress we are making. When you see where we were four races ago, we are learning from mistakes we made and making most of car we have.

"That is really good and the team have been doing a good job there, but we are still not where we wanted to be, so every race we continue to keep on pushing."

Rosberg is also confident he will overtake Mark Webber, starting from second, right at the start.

"I am going to have a stunning start. I am on clean side of grid so I will go straight past Mark and then we will see," he said.

He conceded Red Bull still looked stronger in race terms, but he is not ruling out anything on Sunday.

"For sure they are quicker at the moment, also in the race, so I will take it as it comes. Strategy wise we are strong, another positive is that I have a new option left as I didn't use it in Q3. I am confident we can have a good race, how good it will be I will just have to wait and see."

Team boss Ross Brawn was equally delighted with the progress made by his squad.

"Interesting business Formula 1 because we haven't made any dramatic changes to the car, we've just got it working properly," he told the BBC. "So hopefully we can start bringing some improvements that do work now. But great effort by everybody, really pleased."