Rosberg upbeat ahead of qualifying

The German driver was only outpaced by Lewis Hamilton in the second session, a performance that left him upbeat ahead of Saturday's qualifying.

Rosberg admitted he was enjoying driving his car on the streets of the principality.

"First of all, it's really nice to be driving here again because it's just a really fun track," said Rosberg. "I was looking forward to this weekend because I thought we were going to have a good car here and it now looks like we've arrived with a good set-up.

"I was going well all day and felt comfortable in the car. I am also able to push quite hard so I'm hoping that I can keep it up do a good job in qualifying and then have a good race.

"We worked on a few set-up variants today. We didn't finish the session using our optimum set-up, but we know where we need to go and we still have some reserves up our sleeves, so I am pretty happy with how things are looking."

Teammate Kazuki Nakajima did not have such a positive day, although the Japanese driver feels there is still time to improve.

"It wasn't an easy day for me, but I think we've made some improvements when it comes to understanding the car and I'm getting used to the track as well," Nakajima, ninth quickest, said.

"Because of the free day tomorrow, we have lots of time to go through today's data which will help us prepare for qualifying."