Rosberg hopeful of stronger weekend

"Today we made a small step forward, particularly this morning where we learnt some positive things with the car compared to Malaysia," said Rosberg after posting the fourth fastest time in the afternoon session, just 0.255 seconds behind pace-setter Sebastian Vettel.

"The balance was quite good today, and I really enjoy driving this track. We don't really know where we are right now, and of course what everyone was doing, but today's running gives me hope for an improved performance tomorrow."

Team-mate Michael Schumacher was also encouraged by the progress made today, the German saying a different working approach had paid off.

Schumacher was fifth fastest today.

"We've had a good working day here during the first outings on the Shanghai track. We have changed our working approach this weekend, and I think this has paid off.

"We concentrated mainly on high fuel loads, and it seems we can find the set-up better than starting from low fuel. The long runs were good in my view which is clearly an improvement on the first two races.

"There is room for further improvement so I look forward to understanding what we can achieve in qualifying."