Nico Rosberg is clearly frustrated to be starting only fifth in Bahrain after being on pole in China, but the German stressed that Mercedes has been working more towards the race.
“I’m not really happy, I would prefer to be first,” said Rosberg. “But that’s the way it is, and generally we’ve been working more to the race. There are still really good chances for tomorrow, even from where we are. We’re looking much better than we have been, especially in these conditions here, which are really, really hot and very difficult.
“It’s nice to think that now with fifth place we’re not happy, but we’ve been working well towards the race here. I’m quite happy about tomorrow, I think I can do well and move up. I saved one set of tyres, unlike many others, so that should help.
“Pole position has been changing all the time now, plus the race winner has been changing all the time, which makes it really interesting.”
Rosberg stressed that the race would be all about tyres.
“It’s just tyre management, driving carefully. It’s going to be a good challenge with the tyres, they overheat massively, so it’s going to be a very interesting race.
“Even in qualifying from one corner to the next then can overheat quickly.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Even having new tyres, as Michael has, isn’t such a help when sand and marbles are going to make overtaking so difficult, so I expect Nico to, with luck, hold his position, but a new tyre advantage will be very short lived.
Racing all over the world on all sorts of different circuits is one thing, but racing on circuits where you can’t by definition, race, is, it seems to me, rather waste of everyone’s time and money.
I know that Pirelli are doing what they have been told to do, but is Formula 1 about looking after your tyres?