Mercedes, Rosberg: “Ninth place on the grid was the best for us here in Korea”

Nico Rosberg says his ninth place on the grid represents the best Mercedes could achieve in qualifying for the Korean Grand Prix.

Both Rosberg and teammate Michael Schumacher made Q3 – a marked improvement on last weekend at Suzuka – but neither driver was able to get below second from polesitter Mark Webber.

Rosberg said the car didn't have the pace to further improve its grid position, but he was confident that the situation could be different over the race distance.

“Ninth place was the best we could have achieved today,” he insisted.

“We have set up the car well, but we lack the performance to further challenge the cars in front of us.”

“We are working hard to improve the situation, and hopefully our race pace will be better and we can score some decent points here in Korea.”

“The track here and the cooler temperatures should suit us more than in the last few races, so I'm looking forward to racing tomorrow.”

Schumacher meanwhile said the team had made progress since Japan, but still labeled its qualifying as 'average' performance.

“The positive thing about today's performance is that we have made a step forward compared to last week and are in Q3,” he explained.

“But overall, we are average. We expected to finish somewhere between positions eight and 10, but things didn't go perfectly in the final sector of my fastest lap.”

“Looking ahead to tomorrow, I think we can hope to have a good race: our long runs were quite good, as were the tyres. Let's see how the race goes."