Kimi Raikkonen was fourth fastest for Ferrari with Daniel Ricciardo fifth for Red Bull and Williams driver Valtteri Bottas sixth.
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But Wolff believes Hamilton, who claimed his third world championship with three races to spare in Austin last month, should be afforded a few slack despite his position as road safety ambassador for the FIA, Formula One’s governing body, now said to be under consideration.
Hamilton, who mysteriously did not appear for the traditional top-three photo alongside Rosberg and Vettel after qualifying, has failed to secure pole since the Italian Grand Prix in September – a streak which now stretch to six races.
“It (qualifying) is an area that I had to work on, so I have been working on it through the season”, Rosberg said. Very corporate. Very polished with no edges, his personality will not be as big and therefore not as good for the brand.
Having also won the last race in Mexico, when asked how important it is for him to continue the current momentum he is enjoying through to the end of the season, Rosberg says it is not his primary focus.
“I don’t know what happened there, but the rear just gave up”, Hamilton, who had arrived in Brazil 24 hours later than scheduled after what he described as “a hard week” told the Mercedes team.
“I’ve had the most poles of the year and I’ve won the world championship so there’s nothing really to read into it”.
Felipe Nasr just missed out on a place in the final qualifying session at his home race by little over a tenth of a second, but will start 13th once Ricciardo’s penalty is factored in along with his own penalty for impeding Felipe Massa in Q1.
Today was the first opportunity that the teams had to assess tyre wear and degradation on each compound heading into the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend: traditionally a key factor, due to the constant cornering during a short but frenetic and bumpy lap.
“From what I saw during the session it wasn’t worth it”, said the Australian of the switch.
But Rosberg bounced back emphatically in the second session to finish well ahead of his Mercedes team-mate with the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel third in the standings. “The other sectors were good”, said Hamilton afterwards. In Q3 I lost a bit of time with a lock-up on my first lap.
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It is not thought to be one from the Mexican Grand Prix, where he was able to complete one lap and the Spaniard finished 18th, with 2009 World Champion Jenson Button 16th. Ricciardo qualified ninth but faces a ten-place grid drop for fitting the updated Renault power unit at the start of the weekend, demoting him to a back-row start.
