Rosberg bemoans tricky conditions

Although the track was dry in the morning, a downpour before the second session meant the conditions were far from ideal at the start of the second hour.

"It wasn't easy to find the right set-up today," admitted Rosberg, who nonetheless was a promising seventh quickest.

"It was especially difficult in the afternoon because it was very windy and the rain before the session took a lot of the rubber off the track. I'm not completely happy with the car, but we tested a lot of options and we've definitely learnt a few things.

"We therefore have some good ideas on how we can improve it in time for tomorrow's qualifying. Tyre-wise, this weekend could be very interesting because the weather is making the selection very hard."

Teammate Alex Wurz was 12th quickest after what he labelled as an interesting day due to the weather conditions.

"The Nurburgring weather made it all a bit different today," said Wurz. "Everyone was running varying programmes, including me, just because we had to react to the weather forecast. We had an interesting day, going through a lot of data.

"Everything was ok, but I'm a little bit upset because I lost half a second on my fastest lap due to a problem in the last corner. Anyway, all in all, I feel pretty comfortable on this track."