Nico Rosberg admits the issues which have hit rivals Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel will make his Russian Grand Prix easier from pole position.
Rosberg was unchallenged in qualifying after Mercedes teammate Hamilton failed to emerge in Q3 with power unit trouble. Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel qualified second in Hamilton's absence but will start from seventh due to a grid penalty for a gearbox change on Friday evening.
When asked after Hamilton's problem if the championship was coming his way, he replied: "I didn't know these facts -- of course I knew Sebastian but I didn't really know what Lewis had until now -- but I was just focused on myself out there and really going for it and feeling great about it. It was going really well today from Q2 onwards, it just felt awesome.
"Of course the others have been unfortunate today -- extremely unfortunate -- so that makes my race a little bit easier tomorrow but an F1 race is never easy. Even from where Sebastian is and where Kimi [Raikkonen] is and with Valtteri [Bottas] behind and everything the opposition is still there. So I still need to keep focused and try and get the job done as good as possible."
Rosberg has won six straight races but has benefitted from incidents involving his nearest rivals at the opening corner of the last two events. In China a similar ERS problem for Hamilton prevented a straight battle for pole between the Mercedes drivers and Rosberg admitted he wanted a closer fight, though he is not dwelling on his teammate's absence this time around.
"At the moment I'm still happy how qualifying went because it felt awesome out there. The car was balanced perfectly and through the weekend we've just progressed so much. Then to hit in Q2 and from then on it was just going so well, that's what I'm really pleased about. I haven't thought too much about tomorrow yet but of course starting from pole position is great. It's never easy but of course the way the grid is it does help me a lot for sure to try and get that win tomorrow."
The championship leader admits he felt confident pole would be his as soon as issues developed on Hamilton's car.
"I was quite confident that the lap was good enough out there because in qualifying two Ferrari was quite far away and I knew that Lewis was unable to participate in the last part of qualifying so I was very sure that it was going to be enough, but you never know. There was always still a remaining uncertainty so I was glad eventually when Sebastian crossed the line that it was good enough."