Saturday, 31 July 2010 15:17
Michael Schumacher says that Mercedes followed a set-up direction that didn’t work out for him in qualifying in Hungary after he missed out on Q3 for the third time in four races.
The former champion found himself stranded in 14th on a day when Nico Rosberg took an encouraging sixth.
“Naturally I’m very disappointed,” said Schumacher.
“Basically things started to go wrong already yesterday, [and] because of the significant performance difference that we had yesterday, we decided to work the car very different today.
“We followed a certain path today that seemed to have a reasonable direction, but more for long runs than one lap. In qualifying the track got hotter and something went against us. We still kept our direction, and in hindsight I guess it was not a good one.”
Schumacher admits that the team is a little lost as it is swapping new wings and floors back and forwards.
“It’s a little bit difficult right now," he said. "We don’t understand fully everything, and on occasions we’re a little bit surprised with some of the results, therefore we don’t really have a stable base right now to work with a go a certain path.
"But you know, life offers so many directions, you have to try some!”
Schumacher has realistic expectations for the race: “I’m known to be good at the start and the first corners, but from then on, it will be difficult. Especially as I am on the dirty line for the start.”
Meanwhile Nico Rosberg confirmed that the direction he took had worked out well for him after he surprisingly qualified ahead of the Renaults on the third row alongside McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.
“I think in general we just did a better job on our side of things with set-up and everything. We went in two different directions and things like that, and we were quite happy with ours," Rosberg said.
“That worked quite well and I think we got the best out of the car today, sixth place. It was quite unexpected, I didn’t expect to be that far forward. So that’s OK. But we’re miles off from the front, which is a bit of a concern.”
