• Canadian Grand Prix - Qualifying

Rosberg blames lack of radio for P4

Nico Rosberg says he failed to get a clear lap in Q3 © Getty Images

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• Race:
• Canadian Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Nico Rosberg

• Teams:
• Mercedes

Nico Rosberg said he could only qualify fourth for the Canadian Grand Prix because he had no radio communication with his Mercedes team.

While team-mate Lewis Hamilton was just 0.087s slower than Sebastian Vettel in second place, Rosberg was half a second slower than his team-mate and was even outqualified by Valtteri Bottas' Williams. However, Rosberg said the pace was in the car for him to challenge for pole position but that he was unable to get a clear lap due to the lack of radio.

"Generally I've been very good in these conditions so I think more would have been possible," Rosberg said. "I had a good excuse today that we didn't have the radio. I had no radio communication and in these conditions it's crucial to be able to speak to everybody else, know how many laps we have left, tyre management and all the settings and everything

"So I had no radio and in the end I didn't know we had one more lap left and that's the lap that counts. That's where you need to make the time but I didn't know that so that just meant I was stuck in the gearbox of the Lotus and couldn't do anything.

"I'm not sure about pole, feeling-wise I think [it was possible] but I'm not sure. Vettel was quick with that time so maybe that was out of reach but front row was definitely possible."

Looking ahead to the race Rosberg felt tyre degradation would prevent him being able to challenge for victory.

"It can be OK but we still have tyre degradation being a big problem. So we're going to struggle against some other teams but hopefully still a good result is possible … it's going to be difficult to win again like in Monaco."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.