Rosberg admits rivals problems making life easier

While Rosberg, the winner of the last six races, secured his second pole position in a row without opposition, teammate Lewis Hamilton suffered power unit problems and was unable to take part in Q3.

Ferrari rival Sebastian Vettel finished in second, but the German will start the race from seventh place after a penalty.

Rosberg will share the front row with Williams' Valtteri Bottas, who qualified over a full second behind him.

While the German concedes he still needs to get the job done, he says his rivals' misfortunes are helping.

"I felt great, it was going well today, from Q2 onwards it felt awesome," said Rosberg. "Others were unfortunate today, extremely unfortunate and that is what makes my race a little bit easier tomorrow.

"But an F1 race is never easy. Even from where Seb is, where Valtteri is, the opposition are still there and I need to get the job done as well as possible."

He added: "At the moment I am still happy how qualifying went, it felt awesome out there, and the car was balanced perfectly. We progressed so much. It went so well and I am really pleased about it.

"Starting in pole position will be great. It is never easy but the way the grid is, it does help me out for sure to try to get that win tomorrow."

While things have been smooth for Rosberg, the season has been troubled so far for Hamilton, who is 36 points behind in the standings.

But Rosberg is still expecting things to even out as the season progresses.

"I cannot look into the future. This year... it's three and a half races from 21 so you cannot say this year, it has been a couple of races.

"It is consistently working well for me, but over a season, 21 races, things will even out from now until the end of the year."