Too much grip for 18th place Rosberg.

Nico Rosberg put his failure to qualify for inside the top 16 down to, curiously, having too much grip, the German insisting that a surprisingly balanced car forced him to push too hard in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix, eventually qualifying down in 18th place.

Indeed, Rosberg claimed the car was working better than it had done all weekend and when he duly attempted to push for a good time at the end of the session, he ran wide at the final turn and cost himself some six tenths, leaving him ninth row of the grid.

"It was generally difficult for me today because I was experiencing much more grip on my new tyres than I had in the morning and I had to get used to everything very quickly. It was going well until the final sector of my last lap, but then I pushed too hard and braked too late and lost about six tenths, which put me out of the top 16.

"The track conditions we are experiencing here are unexpected so it's definitely going to be an interesting race. It won't be easy for me starting from behind, but we will see how it goes."

Nonetheless, Rosberg has experience of racing from the back of the grid at the tortuous Hungaroring, having come from behind in the GP2 Series to finish an eventual fourth place.

However, while his hopes of reaching the points this year are somewhat weaker, Sam Michael has confidence that Rosberg can fight back from an unfavourable position, as he has done on several occasions this year.

"Obviously was not a good day for Nico as he didn't make it past the first cut. He's shown that he can progress through the field well from previous races where he started from the back, so it will be interesting to see how he does in the race. Now we will concentrate on the development of our race strategy for tomorrow."