Rosberg says DRS issues cost him

The two Mercedes finished sixth and seventh, with Schumacher ahead, after some close calls between the pair.

"There were some cool battles, but unfortunately it was a difficult race for me," said Rosberg.

"The radio didn't work so that made it difficult to understand the race because there's so much you have to do with the settings and fuel saving, so that was a bit challenging.

"Then my rear wing also broke so I didn't have the overtaking system and it made it very difficult to overtake. Otherwise for sure I could've moved up and I'm sure I would've finished a lot closer to the top because I think I had pretty good pace today."

He said Schumacher's car had looked much less competitive than his, but with both drivers lapped, Rosberg admitted that even if he had got past, the frontrunners would have been tough to catch.

"It didn't look like he had a good balance," said Rosberg of Schumacher. "I was pretty happy with my car, it felt good. I think I had good speed.

"But there's still a lot of work to do because unfortunately I don't think we really managed to close the gap yet."

Schumacher said he was content just to hang on to sixth on a difficult day.

"We managed to make the most out of our possibilities today which is good news, especially for our guys who I am happy for," he said.

"I had a good start; going right through the middle was tight but fortunately it worked out. Then the race was about holding position from there.

"We can be happy with the result but other than that, it was just tricky with oversteer, tyre degradation and poor balance to deal with.

"Still we achieved what we could have, and I look forward to going to Monaco."