Rosberg delighted with Mercedes gains

At the Spanish street track neither Mercedes managed to qualify in the top 10 and Rosberg had to rely on penalties ahead to scrape a point. But he was back with the frontrunners all weekend in Britain and took third behind Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton.

"Mark and Lewis were very fast in front, no way to keep up, but we have made such a great step forward from Valencia," said Rosberg. "It was such a disastrous weekend, we analysed where we went wrong.

"And we're on the podium, nearly out of merit apart from Sebastian [Vettel's puncture] I guess - and we can make more because things like the F-duct aren't working properly on our car."

He confirmed that his car had received damage when Jaime Alguersuari made contact with him while being overtaken into Brooklands during the pitstop sequence.

"I am sure it did, but it was still good enough to hold Jenson [Button] behind which is great," said Rosberg.

"Jenson was close, but a bit more easy to keep him behind than [Fernando] Alonso - he is not able to follow as close so having the Ferrari behind would have been a bit more difficult."

Alonso chased Rosberg in the early stages when both were caught behind Robert Kubica's Renault, but fell away from the Mercedes when given a drive-through penalty for corner-cutting during a dice with Kubica.