After locking up his front-right brake on his final qualifying run, Nico Rosberg admitted he felt the need to attack the Monaco Grand Prix circuit in order to stand a chance of beating Lewis Hamilton.
Rosberg qualified 0.342s off his Mercedes team-mate Hamilton, but ruined his second run with his mistake at Sainte Devote. With Ferrari a further 0.4s off the pace, qualifying turned into a head-to-head battle between the two Mercedes drivers and Rosberg said he went on full attack to try to beat Hamilton.
"It was probably the opposite to Lewis, that I had a good rhythm starting off qualifying, which I didn't have all weekend so it was good to get into in qualifying, and then just lost touch a little bit at the end," he said. "Of course, going for it, because I have to because I know Lewis is going to be quick so I need to go for it - it didn't work out, that's it."
Rosberg said he felt a quicker lap was possible but the advantages of a set-up tweak ahead of his final run failed to materialise.
"Recovery, no I didn't really see it as too much of a problem. It was very close and I was confident I could improve on my lap time. I changed my balance also, because on the first run I had too much understeer, so I went up on the front flap by a good step. I was confident it was going to come my way but then it didn't."