Having vented his agony and frustration in the cockpit, Rosberg insists he will not let the 'agony' of the result undermine his optimism - or derail his pursuit of the world championship crown...
Q: Nico, what a setback for your title hopes. When did the problems start?
Nico Rosberg: Already in the pits. Suddenly all the buttons and the radio stopped their function: I had no hybrid power, I had no DRS - only the gear paddles sort of worked, but what was kind of strange was I could only upshift two at a time, so I had no fourth gear and no sixth gear. Then it all sort of came back for a few laps, only to disband again. It was hopeless. And in the end there was nothing I nor the team could do. For security reasons they called me in.
Q: What explanation do you have for it? The car was fast and working all Saturday and was in parc ferme during the night...
NR: I do not have an explanation. We will have to analyse the situation but my feeling is that such a thing should be avoidable - it's probably a simple electronic module. It was an ugly feeling sitting there and being completely helpless, knowing that your whole race is going out the window. That is really heavy!
Q: Your race out the window, your team mate winning and now leading in the championship - how do you deal with that?
NR: It was the toughest day of the year for me and right now I only can say that I am in agony and desperately trying to come up with a logical explanation for all that.
Q: How long will it take you to overcome this frustration?
NR: I fumed in the cockpit, so I am already on the way to recovery now. I left most of the anger in the helmet!
Q: We all witnessed your fingers moving desperately from one button to the other, but nothing really seemed to ease the situation…
NR: I know that we tried everything - two steering wheels, for example - but that didn't help a bit as it was not the steering wheel itself but obviously something in the steering column that connects the steering wheel and car. As I just said in the end we will probably learn that it was a petty part that caused all that drama - but there was nothing we could have done more in that very moment. When I finally got into gear it was all but funny to start behind the Caterham.
Q: Could the cause be the team radio regulation changes, as they also meant changes to the dashboard?
NR: I indeed made changes to my dashboard but I doubt that this is the reason - but then who knows.
Q: What can you take out of this weekend? Can reliability cost you the title?
NR: That reliability is our weakness. We have to get to the bottom of things. Reliability will be a major factor in the title race, but thinking that it will cost me the title is very pessimistic - and I am optimistic!
Q: What do you demand from the team for Japan?
NR: I don't 'demand' anything different to what I hoped for in the past. The team is focusing a lot on reliability and we are all trying to improve together.