Lowe: Rosberg "lost control of throttle pedal" in Q3 scare

Rosberg beat teammate Lewis Hamilton by a tenth of a second, despite aborting his first Q3 run due to his engine cutting out at the end of the lap.

Lowe explained the issue was caused by a series of problems, rather than just one.

“He had a couple of problems concurrently just at the end of that lap which caused the engine to cut out,” Lowe told Sky Sports F1.

“It lost synch on all the gears and it corresponded with a warning about the throttle pedal, which was actually not to do with it, but I think that gave him a scare – nobody likes to lose control of their throttle pedal.

“He aborted the lap, which is a disturbance to your pattern in Q3. We were just particularly impressed that he went out there and got the pole time with that sort of stress, and with two laps of fuel on board. We gave him two chances, so a great lap, good job.

“We found a way of shutting it down into a safe mode, and then sent him again.”

Wolff praise

Team boss Toto Wolff also praised Rosberg for pulling out a good lap after such a disrupted session.

“He had a little electronic gremlin on the out lap, and then a sensor failure,” he told Motorsport.com. “And that’s why he decided to abort it. The sensor didn’t understand what was going on, and showed him a failure towards the end of the flying lap.

“We refuelled him for three laps, and he bankered on the first one, so he was a bit heavier than Lewis. He deserved pole position, and under pressure to deliver such a lap, it was certainly very good.”