Rosberg's race in Malaysia

Williams F1 driver, Nico Rosberg had a lot to take this week. After being called out 'future World Champion' after the race in Bahrain, the young gun got a lot of criticism after the Malaysian GP. But the German remains optimistic and looks forward to the GP of Australia.

"Of course I am a bit disappointed after the race in Malaysia, but in the end I think overall it was a good weekend for me.

Despite all of the attention from everyone, I am forcing myself to relax and try to not let any of it get to me, because I know what’s best for me. I obviously have to speak to everybody and do interviews and things, but I have to not let it get to me, concentrate on my job and keep working hard.

I didn’t have such a good start in the race in Sepang and made a bit of a mistake, probably because of concentrating too much on Mark. I thought he was the only guy I was fighting with into the first corner and in the end it hurt both of us as Alonso went past the two of us in one go.

It was my fault as I was trying to put pressure on Mark and push him onto the dirty side of the track to stop him getting by. It was just like he was any other driver because the team said, ‘as long as you don’t take each other off, then you are free to race.’ But in the end I should have accepted that Mark was there and we should have worked together and made sure that we got through the corner without anybody else passing us. I will change that for the future, Mark and I have spoken and we can work on that together.

Points were possible
It’s a shame my race was over with the engine failure on lap seven, because I think with our strategy we could have been comfortably in the points, probably either just in front or just behind the Ferraris, so either fifth or seventh. A podium just wouldn’t have been possible because Alonso, Fisichella and Button were a lot quicker and were in front of us at the start.

Having Cosworth with the team has done a lot of good so far this year. Everybody has suffered engine problems because of the new V8 rule for this year and we’ve had three cars running over the last two weekends and mine was the first problem we’ve had. I think it’s to be expected to have some problems at the beginning of the season.

Super quick in qualifying
Qualifying went really well. I didn’t expect to get as high up as third on the grid. That was a bit of a surprise to me, but obviously I was really pleased. In testing it has always been very similar between me and Mark, who was fourth, so I wasn’t surprised to be ahead of him. I fully believe in myself, so why shouldn’t I be ahead?

It was very hot in Malaysia which made things quite tough and I think the race would have been really hard, but I didn’t get very far after retiring early on, so in the end it wasn’t too difficult. But anyway I would have been fine.

You have to drink like hell and I don’t know how many litres I had before the race, but in terms of cooling we don’t do anything different. There is no extra ventilation in the cockpit so it gets amazingly hot, especially under fire-proof overalls, a race-suit and a helmet. It’s almost like driving a Grand Prix in a sauna.

Even though it will be another new circuit to learn at the next race in Melbourne, I didn’t know the track in Malaysia and it worked out really well there. I think I just have a good ability to learn tracks, which could come in handy this year.

The signs are good for Australia. It will be good to relax a little because these last two weekends have been quite an experience and it will take a few days to calm down after all the adrenaline of my first two Grands Prix. Also back-to-back Grands Prix weekends are quite tough so it will be good to have a few days break on the beach."