- Hungarian GP - Qualifying
Pole means less without Lewis fight - Rosberg
Nico Rosberg says pole position would have meant more to him in Hungary if he had been able to go head-to-head with team-mate Lewis Hamilton, whose fire in Q1 ruled him out of the session.
After Hamilton's early misfortune pole looked like Rosberg's to lose and so it proved, comfortably finishing half a second quicker than Sebastian Vettel in a rather chaotic final session of qualifying. Despite securing his fifth pole position in the last six races Rosberg says the absence of title rival Hamilton in Q3 limits the enjoyment he took from it.
"I would prefer to be out there battling with Lewis, that would give me the maximum adrenaline rush," Rosberg said. "Of course I'm very, very happy but it a prevented a gloves-off battle with Lewis and that takes away a little bit the ecstatic happiness.
"That's been a pity for the team, reliability, not a good thing definitely and we need to keep working on that. It's massively disappointing when the car breaks down, I had it two races ago in Silverstone. It's tough because it's not something you can control - it's difficult. Tomorrow is still going to be a long race and a challenging race, especially with the weather coming, so its all to play for."
Light rain at the beginning of Q3 looked set to spice up proceedings somewhat, with Rosberg the first to head out on a damp track on the option tyre. At the start of his first timed lap he ran wide at Turn 1 and managed to avoid the barriers, though Kevin Magnussen did not, which Rosberg says was down to the treacherous nature of the circuit at that time.
"Q3 was really a big challenge because the track was changing all the time at the beginning. Especially starting the lap with a fresh set of options, I was the first one to arrive in the first corner and it was just difficult to judge how much risk I could take and how late I could brake. It was very, very wet so I did take it a bit easy and managed to avoid crashing. It was massively difficult and unpredictable down there, but that can happen. From then on it was easier as it started drying again and on my last lap I managed to nail it."
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