Mercedes GP had an average qualifying. The team wasn't able to make a big impact today but was effectively 'best of the rest' behind Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari. Nico Rosberg was happy with his 8th consecutive Q3 qualifying: "Yesterday was very busy with a lot of set-up changes but the team and I did a decent job today to improve the car, so I'm quite pleased."

Rosberg will start the race from P7 tomorrow. He thinks that tyres will be important tomorrow and was able to save an extra set of softs for tomorrow's race. "It is difficult out on track this weekend and we have to be careful of overheating the rear tyres - that will certainly be something to watch out for tomorrow. I was able to save one set of soft tyres, by running used options in Q2, and this can be important in the race as we aim to score some nice points. I'm looking forward to it."

Michael Schumacher will start the race just behind his teammate: P8. He was also satisfied with the result: "I am ok with today's qualifying result which I would say was an average one. I might have improved by one place but in the penultimate slow corner, I attacked a bit too early, got oversteer and had to lift for a moment which cost me the place to Nico."

The German remains realistic: "All in all, we came in where we had expected to finish. It would be optimistic in my view to expect that we can attack the cars in front of us tomorrow because I think our starting positions realistically reflect where we stand at the moment. So let's see how the race develops and what we can make out of it tomorrow."

Last year Rosberg finished 10th and was 15th.