Rosberg welcomes fourth position

"I am quite pleased with the outcome today as it was quite tricky, especially at the start against the KERS cars," said Rosberg after the race.

"Initially I had no chance off the line, but the first corner was quite a big mess and I managed to profit from this and climb back to fifth place, which was important.

"As the race settled down, I had to manage the tyres cautiously because of graining in both the first and second stint. Given all of these issues, we have to be very happy with fourth place and I am now up to fifth in the championship, although of course this was in part due to the fact that Felipe wasn't able to start today.

"Anyway, I am enjoying working with the team and everyone is pushing on really well, so we'll continue to improve if we keep moving in this direction."

Team-mate Kazuki Nakajima was unable to score his first points of the season after he was passed by Jenson Button early on.

The Japanese finished in ninth, the same place where he had started from.

"After the first lap when I got past Jenson, I couldn't hold the position and once he had got back past me, it dictated my race," said Nakajima. "It was a big moment for me and made it very difficult to improve for the rest of the day despite good car pace as I was running in traffic.

"We just need to keep pushing and one race soon we are going to get the result."