In 2014, whilst his teammate took the world championship title (his second), Nico Rosberg could content himself with the inaugural pole position trophy, having claimed the prestigious starting position at 11 of the year's events compared to his partner's 7.

This year, already 3-6 down to his teammate, it appears the German may be conceding both trophies.

True, after a lacklustre start to the season which suggested he might have been broken by his teammate's sheer speed, aggression and talent, Rosberg hit back with a couple of very impressive performances... not forgetting that gift of a win in Monaco. But suddenly Hamilton looks to be in control again.

"Part of it is that I worked on my racing to improve that and it's definitely been better, so I'm pleased with that," he told reporters after securing a front row start alongside Hamilton, albeit 0.575s slower.

"Of course, that's slightly compromised qualifying," he continued. "Some of it, but most of it is not explicable for me. I don't understand why it's such a big difference to last year.

After losing out on Friday, Paddy Lowe admitted to discovering a configuration error on Rosberg's car overnight, consequently in FP3 the German was just 0.098s off the pace. Then came that disastrous qualifying session, which featured a number of needless mistakes and the German constantly complaining about the handling of his car.

"Something went wrong in qualifying which I can't quite explain at the moment," lamented the German. "In P3 I sorted out the problems from Friday and had a great feeling in the car. But then, as early as the first lap in Q1, I had to feed back to the pits that I had heavy understeer from the car. I tried to change some of the electronic setup but it didn't really work out.

"The positive could be that this setup might help me a bit more in the race, as understeering could keep the rear tyres more alive, so we will see.

"It's frustrating, but I'm nearly over it and then a good dinner tonight with friends and tomorrow I'll be firing on all pistons and ready to attack. It's not something that pulls me down in any way. It's the way it is and as long as my racing is good, I can turn it around and try and do that tomorrow."