Great hopes for Rosberg after the first tests in Australia

Photo Australian GP free practice
Nico Rosberg said his hopes for the Australian Grand Prix have increased after the fastest times in both free practice sessions on Friday in Melbourne. The Williams driver set the pace in the first session with a narrow margin over his teammate Kazuki Nakajima and Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari. Then the German lowered his best time again to 1.26.053 in the afternoon session, being a tenth faster than Rubens Barrichello and three tenths faster than Timo Glock's Toyota.

Rosberg is not yet certain he will maintain this lead throughout the weekend but admitted that the solid start to the season is fueling his expectations.

“My hopes are more ambitious now, we can undoubtedly be consistent and aim to collect points. We obviously did better than I thought, which is really nice. How much better remains to be seen, but we are in a better position and that's nice. Today we went very well but the objective remains the points because it is not yet clear how much fuel the others had, however we did not run with empty tanks. So we still have some reserves, it will be interesting tomorrow. We have to wait, but it was fantastic for the whole team to finish first place twice. We didn't do anything different from what we always do. So we've made a big step forward, but we can't say how big. But I think we will be able to have fun in the first races."