• Turkish Grand Prix

I was quicker than Schumacher - Rosberg

Nico Rosberg reckons he could have gone quicker in clear air © Getty Images

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• Drivers:
• Nico Rosberg
• |
• Michael Schumacher

• Teams:
• Mercedes

Nico Rosberg reckons he was faster than Michael Schumacher at the Turkish Grand Prix, but not by a big enough margin to overtake him for fourth.

Rosberg spent most of the race several seconds behind his Mercedes team-mate and had a long queue of cars behind him including Robert Kubica's Renault and the two Ferraris. However, Rosberg reckons he would have gone quicker in clear air.

"I was slightly faster than Michael for much of the race but it was not possible to overtake and I had to be careful as Robert was pushing hard behind me," he said. "For me, the most exciting part of the race were the in and out laps for my pit stop which were pretty fast and together with the great work from the team, that enabled me to stay ahead of the cars just behind me on track. Although our general pace still has to be improved, I'm satisfied that we have taken what we could from this weekend."

Schumacher was also happy with the team's progress and claimed the result proved that Mercedes had leapfrogged Ferrari.

"It was a straightforward race for me without any more possibilities [to finish higher]," he said. "I understand at the front there was quite a bit happening so for the fans, it was a good show. All in all, I think we had a positive race and we clearly made a step forward towards Red Bull and in front of Ferrari, so we can be quite happy about that."

He said he had wanted to maintain position ahead of Jenson Button at the start of the race but low tyre pressures meant his focus was on keeping the car in a straight line.

"My race started as I had hoped when I was able to catch Jenson right at the start," he added. "Unfortunately I did not have a lot of grip with the tyres as the formation lap was quite slow and the pressures had gone down which combined with the top speed of the McLarens meant that I could not hold Jenson behind me for long. I was even struggling to keep the car on the track during the first lap. From there onwards, I was in my starting position and when Sebastian retired, we were able to pick up a place. That was about it."

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