Nico Rosberg says he needs to work on his one-lap pace if he is to challenge Lewis Hamilton for pole position at the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend.
Rosberg has suffered four consecutive defeats to his Mercedes team-mate in qualifying this year and finished over 0.75s off Hamilton in second practice. He appeared to be more competitive over longer runs at the Circuit de Catalunya and a couple of small problems help account for some of the gap, but he admits he needs to find more one-lap pace ahead of qualifying on Saturday.
"It's always a compromise between long run and short run, set-up wise and everything," Rosberg said. "Especially in these conditions, it's very hot out there so very tough on the tyres on a long run. But for sure I need to work on my one lap pace for tomorrow.
"Mainly it was that I worked the tyres too hard on the out lap, so starting the flying lap they were just too hot."
Rosberg also suffered a gearbox issue, but he is confident the team can prevent a repeat.
"It's just some small problems and we need to fine-tune some of those things. We were trying some new settings on the downshifts and that meant when I was pulling for the downshifts there was a delay, it didn't go in straight away. That was just a bit awkward so we came back on those. All in all it was a good day, I have to say for the race especially. It was looking pretty good, especially compared to Ferrari which is important and compared to Lewis it was close. On one lap I still have some work to do."