Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn has hailed Nico Rosberg’s pole position lap ‘incredible’ after the German dominated the final qualifying session in China.
Rosberg will start alongside his team-mate Michael Schumacher to give Mercedes their first pole and 1-2 since the 1955 Italian GP.
“It was a fantastic achievement,” said Brawn, but he admitted there was a concern that they wouldn’t be able to match that pace in Sunday’s race after struggling with their tyres. “In the back of our mind we’ve got to put a race together tomorrow,” he told the BBC.
“It was quite an exceptional lap by Nico. He hasn’t had a great first couple of races in that respect, and today we saw what he can do. The middle sector he did was just incredible.”
Brawn even suggested they could have gone quicker, but backed off following Lewis Hamilton’s penalty.
“We backed off once we saw that we weren’t really under any threat because Lewis has got a penalty,” added Brawn. “We wanted to try and save a set of tyres.”
