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Rosberg pessimistic over tyre issues

ESPN Staff
July 25, 2013 « Vergne still in the running for Red Bull drive - Ricciardo | Allison poised to join Ferrari »
Nico Rosberg: "I'm not going in to the weekend overly confident for us as a team" © Sutton Images
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Nico Rosberg admits he is concerned Mercedes will never get on top of its tyre problems this season.

While the Mercedes has been the fastest car in qualifying trim for a number of races, its race pace has tended to suffer as it struggles to get sustained performance out of the Pirelli tyres. With another change to the tyres being implemented at the Hungarian Grand Prix, Rosberg says the team finds it difficult to pinpoint why it has trouble and as a result may always be on the back foot.

"We didn't get a full handle on the previous ones; [the issue of] the tyres is such a complex matter," Rosberg said. "It's difficult to get a full handle on them anyway, so it's just a matter of trying to be ahead of everybody else and making the most of them. Of course we've learned a lot now over the years with these Pirelli tyres and we're making progress and understanding them better but now again we need to start over and get the knowledge again because it's different tyres to what we've had for the rest of the season.

"It's not only doing what's required it's understanding. What is it exactly that's causing the issues? Why were we a little bit weaker when it was getting hot at the Nurburgring compared to the cold? That's the difficult part."

With high temperatures forecast for the weekend at the Hungaroring, Rosberg added that he wasn't optimistic of a good result.

"The track should suit us and we should have decent qualifying pace but again the tyres are very different so that's even going to have an impact on qualifying pace. Then with the cooling there are a lot of question marks where we have to be very careful and it could shuffle things round this weekend. So I'm not going in to the weekend overly confident for us as a team."

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