“I don't know exactly what happened,” the 23-year-old admitted. “I just went into the first corner following the guy in front. I didn't change my line and I was suddenly hit from behind.
“I wanted to make it back to the garage as I thought there was a chance to get the problem fixed and get back out, but my car had suffered too much damage so I had to retire. It's a real shame because we showed we had good long-run pace on Friday and were expecting to have the same pace in the race, so we could have done well here this afternoon.”
The Grove-based outfit's technical director Sam Michael elected to take the positives away from the weekend, whilst echoing Rosberg's suggestion that the team needs to find more speed if it is to successfully stave off the onslaughts of
Renault,
Red Bull Racing and
Toyota for fourth place in the constructors' title chase.
“It's good to get a point for the constructors' championship,” the Australian underlined. “It was a clear-headed drive from Nico; he was flat-out all afternoon, didn't make any mistakes and delivered. Unfortunately, the traffic just prior to both pit-stops cost him some time.
“Kazuki was hit from behind which left his car too badly damaged to continue so his race was over, which was a shame. Apart from that, we had no reliability issues.
“The whole midfield is very tight now as today demonstrated, so we need to bring some more performance to the car if we are going to stay in the battle for fourth place.“
