• Canadian Grand Prix - Qualifying

Rosberg bemoans FP3 troubles but pleased with fifth

ESPN Staff
June 9, 2012 « Webber 'pretty happy to be fourth' | Massa 'not happy' with personal mistakes »
Nico Rosberg didn't even complete one lap during FP3 © Sutton Images
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Nico Rosberg admitted that a lack of running in FP3 hampered his qualifying session but thinks he got close to the maximum result possible in Canada.

A fuel connector problem on his installation lap on Saturday morning forced Rosberg to sit out the whole final practice session. Despite that, Rosberg recovered sufficiently to qualify in fifth place for Sunday's race in Montreal and he admitted that he couldn't have aimed any higher than fourth place on the grid.

"It definitely makes it difficult to miss out the whole session when everybody else is doing qualy practice and thing like that, so I really had to build it up in qualifying," Rosberg said. "In the end I'm quite pleased; fifth place is what our car was giving today. Maybe if everything goes perfectly I could have had fourth, beating Mark [Webber], but I didn't quite manage that. But still, it's a good position to start from tomorrow, not quite as in Monaco in qualifying it seems but maybe race pace wise we can beat one or two of the cars in front and the podium has to be the goal."

Rosberg added that he had been working on tyre management on Friday and was hopeful it would pay off in the race.

"Today's qualifying session went pretty well and P5 is a good starting position to gain a strong result here in Montreal. I can still hope for a podium finish tomorrow as we have worked very hard on our race pace over the weekend. That's why I feel quite positive because the race will depend on good tyre management as the key factor."

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