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Rosberg a fan of 2012 Pirelli tyres

Nico Rosberg: "Personally, I think it's great for the season" © Sutton Images

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• Drivers:
• Nico Rosberg
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• Michael Schumacher

• Teams:
• Mercedes

Nico Rosberg does not agree with his Mercedes team-mate Michael Schumacher that this year's Pirelli tyres are playing too big a part in racing.

Schumacher was critical of the Pirellis after the Bahrain Grand Prix, arguing that he had to drive at a slower pace to manage his tyres. But the narrow operating window of this year's tyres has made racing unpredictable with four different winners, including Rosberg, from the first four races.

"It's just a very different game," Rosberg told Autosport. "We have seen already this year that when you go from one condition to another, one racetrack to another, one temperature to another... different cars are better on the tyres, so there's a very big engineering challenge to understand why, to adapt and to try and be the one to understand the tyres best. That can be a very big key for the season, so we're pushing hard to try and understand that quicker than others.

"Personally, I think it's great for the season. We've had four winners in four races, all mixed up. It couldn't be better for Formula One. Also within the races, with the tyre degradation and with lots of overtaking, we've had lots of exciting races."

But Pirelli boss Paul Hembery believes it is just a matter of time until the teams figure out how to get the most from this year's tyres, which he says will make the racing much more predictable.

"We are at the start of the season," Hembery told the James Allen on F1 website. "At the start of last year there was a lot of discussion and you will find that two or three races from now we won't be having this discussion. Because the engineers will work out how to maximise the performance on the car they will find a balance and a relative level of normality will occur."

He added that this year's tyres are a result of Pirelli fulfilling its remit to provide exciting racing.

"You have to bear in mind what we were asked to do. We were asked to create these challenges. If the sport wants us to go to a one change, zero degradation tyre we can do that as well. But maybe people have short memories, the sport was in huge decline no-one was watching it. There was no overtaking. We know that the majority of fans like to see overtaking."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.