Michael: Wurz improving in qualifying

The Austrian has been outclassed by his young teammate on Saturdays so far this season and the situation was no different in France, where Wurz ended the day a disappointing 18th fastest, nine places behind Rosberg.

"There was nothing wrong with the car," Wurz told autosport.com. "Everything was OK; there was no mistake. I just slid a little bit in the last sector and lost a tenth, and that's it.

"At the time I was 0.015 seconds behind my teammate, and it's very close. But I have to pay the price."

"Our car improves with more rubber on the track, so that's why for Nico and me, qualifying 1 was quite slippery and a bit loose on the rear.

"Nico said that in the second and third session the car became a bit more towards what we like. When it's a bit more secure in the rear then we can extract a better lap time, although I didn't make it that far.

"But this explains why our race performance is always very good in comparison to qualifying."

According to technical director Sam Michael, the team are still working on helping Wurz pick up his single-lap pace in an effort to improve his qualifying record and thus make his life considerably easier in the races.

"We're still trying to work away at him with it; to improve his one-lap pace," Michael said.

"The gaps are much smaller than what they have been between him and Nico - [it's] down to a tenth between them in practice and qualifying."