Electronic glitch disrupted Nico Rosberg's final qualifying session
Nico Rosberg overcame an electronic glitch that ruined his first run in Q3 to claim pole for his home race in Germany.
Rosberg had to abort his first run after experiencing a throttle problem close to the end of his lap, so he didn’t have a banker time after the first runs. Despite the extra pressure he then set a time that teammate Lewis Hamilton could not beat after locking up on his final run.
“It was a great feeling, just a great lap,” said Rosberg. “Not only was it just one lap that I had, but I also had extra fuel to make sure that I would have an extra shot if a mistake or something happens. So I had fuel for three laps. So that was some more time in the bag there, so I was really satisfied with that one. That was really cool.”
Rosberg said he was mystified by the sudden problem: “I don’t know what it was. It just suddenly lost the throttle. So it just cut completely the engine, just at the end of the lap. That was disappointing, but I’m sure we’ll fix it for tomorrow. It’s never happened before, so I’m sure it will be OK. Definitely it will be an exciting race against Lewis and the Red Bulls and maybe also the Ferraris but they’re a bit further back it seems.
“It was frustrating at the time because it was a good lap and then to lose it two corners from the end in a way that I’ve never experienced before was definitely tough in that moment. And then also to know that I had to put extra fuel for the last run, to be able to do three laps because just to have a little bit of a contingency plan in case lap one doesn’t work out. And then just very happy with that first lap. That was awesome, it really came together well. So as a result it was quite challenging to do that last run.”
Toto Wolff also praised Rosberg for pulling out a good lap after such a disrupted session.
“He had a little electronic gremlin on the out lap, and then a sensor failure,” he said. “And that’s why he decided to abort it. The sensor didn’t understand what was going on, and showed him a failure towards the end of the flying lap. We refueled him for three laps, and he bankered on the first one, so he was a bit heavier than Lewis. He deserved pole position, and under pressure to deliver such a lap, it was certainly very good.”
