Nico Rosberg said he was trying to force Lewis Hamilton into a mistake which never materialised late on and confessed he probably lost the Canadian Grand Prix in qualifying.
Rosberg applied constant pressure to Hamilton but his Mercedes team-mate turned in a near-faultless drive to win. The German admitted he was flat out in the closing stages and praised Hamilton for his performance.
"It was a good race against Lewis," Rosberg said. "I was pushing like mad to try and put the pressure on but he didn't make any mistakes, so fair play. It was a challenging race because we had to manage fuel, brakes, all these things - but it's the same for Lewis, same for both of us. A good race, unfortunately I couldn't quite make it happen - but second place, still OK."
Rosberg was frustrated with a "rubbish" end to Q3 on Saturday and he thinks that was where his best chance of victory slipped away.
Asked what was lacking, he replied: "It was just the tiny bit that I lost out in qualifying, in the end, because the race pace was there. The qualifying position then makes that big difference. That's what I need to make happen next time - that's it."