Rosberg confident about race pace

The Williams driver, quickest in final practice this morning, had to settle for seventh position on the grid for tomorrow's race.

Rosberg said there was not much more he could do, although he admitted he was surprised by Fernando Alonso's pace after the Renault driver secured second position.

"This is where we are at the moment," said Rosberg. "We are the fourth best team out there so seventh place is more or less where we expected to be. We struggled slightly in warming up the tyres, but otherwise I am quite pleased.

"Strategy-wise, we are looking good and I'm not worried about our race pace. If you look at Malaysia we were pretty strong in the race even though the tyres are a challenge, both hard and soft.

"We'll have to see how everyone around us looks in terms of fuel. It would be good if, after Australia and Malaysia, things would go a bit more our way tomorrow. I must say that, for me, today's surprise was Alonso."

Team-mate Kazuki Nakajima qualified down in 15th place despite feeling the car was competitive.

"The car is as competitive as it was in Malaysia and we're still making progress, so this result is a shame," Nakajima said.

"I really hope I can do better in the race, but we first need to look at our data and see what was going on with the car and try to resolve it. We'll do our best to get a good strategy in place as you never know what can happen in a Grand Prix."