Rosberg confident of scoring points

The Williams driver, who finished seventh in Australia and looked set to score again in Malaysia until he was hit by a mechanical problem, continued with his promising start to the season by making it to the final qualifying session for the second time in a row.

Rosberg, who made a stunning debut in Bahrain last year, will start from 10th place, but is hopeful his race pace will be strong enough to challenge for points.

"I'm happy with that because sometimes it's not always easy to get into Q3," said Rosberg. "I would have liked to have been a bit higher up but from 10th on the grid everything is possible.

"Strategy-wise, we're looking good for the race. I'm looking forward to it; our car is strong, we have a competitive race pace and I will hopefully score some points."

Teammate Alex Wurz failed to make it past Q2 by 0.026 seconds, the Austrian having to settle for 11th position.

"I missed out on Q3 by just a few thousandths of a second," he said. "It's very tough competition out there, which is very nice as it's so challenging, but it's brutal. That's motorsport at its best. We went out early to avoid the traffic so my lap was clean.

"A positive to starting in P11 is that I can now choose my fuel load and strategy. It's going to be a tough one but I'm hoping for a good race pace, like we had in Malaysia."