Chinese GP winner Nico Rosberg surprised by Mercedes race pace

The German driver secured his F1 first pole position on Saturday, but was widely expected to struggle to keep the pace in the race following problems suffered by Mercedes in the first two grands prix with its tyres.

The problems vanished in China, however, and Rosberg led commandingly from start to finish to take his maiden win at the 111th attempt.

Rosberg, who took the first F1 world championship race win for Mercedes as a constructor since 1955, admitted he was surprised by his own pace in the race.

"[It is an] unbelievable feeling. [I am] very cool, very happy and very excited," said Rosberg. "It's been a long time coming for me and the team.

"We didn't expect to be that fast today. We knew we had good chance to be in the? front but we didn't expect to be that fast.

"Thanks to whole team for working very hard also, and for improving the set-up. I was struggling in first two races with race pace but here it came good."

Rosberg, who took the chequered flag over 20 seconds ahead of Jenson Button, labelled his weekend as "perfect" after failing to score in the first two races of the season.

"It is fantastic," added Rosberg, Formula 1's first new winner since the 2009 season. "It's been the perfect weekend.

"Everything couldn't be better. I'm very happy. It was a great race and it's impressive to see how we have progressed so quickly. We had struggled in the first two races, but we made some changes and it has all come good. I am happy for all of us and I was looking forward to seeing how we get on."

Rosberg's team-mate Michael Schumacher retired from the race on lap 15.