MERCEDES GP PETRONAS drivers Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher qualified in sixth and tenth places for the German Grand Prix in today’s qualifying session at the Nürburgring.
• Nico used the following tyres: Q1: New Prime, New Option; Q2: Used Option, New Option; Q3: New Option
• Michael followed the same tyre usage strategy for the three qualifying sessions
• Michael suffered a KERS failure during third practice, which was resolved in time for qualifying
Nico Rosberg
“Sixth place is a good place to start tomorrow, and whether the conditions are wet or dry, I think we can have a good race from there. I’m happy with the set-up work that we have achieved this weekend and that the new parts are working which is really satisfying. We can see that we are going in the right direction. It should be an exciting race tomorrow and hopefully I can make up a couple of positions in front of all the German supporters.”
Michael Schumacher
“We did not perform to expectations this afternoon and already this morning, the car was not the one I had in my hands up to the first run in P3. It felt like I was just sliding around out there and the balance wasn’t great. We had a KERS problem this morning, which we thought explained the big gap to Nico, however in qualifying I was still nearly a second away and couldn’t have matched his time, so we have to analyse deeply what could be the reason for it. Obviously then, I tried to push even harder to compensate which lead to a mistake in the last chicane on my last lap, probably costing me P8. We now have to see how we can improve for tomorrow, and I will certainly try to have a good start and a race as good as possible.”
Ross Brawn
“Sixth position for Nico got the most out of the car today. Michael was less happy with his balance, and had a moment on his final lap, but we still have a reasonable base for tomorrow with both drivers starting in the top ten. We have made good progress over the weekend in understanding how to use our new aerodynamic package, and hope to consolidate that work in race conditions. We have also learned this weekend that Silverstone doesn’t have a monopoly on cold and wet summers! The forecast for tomorrow remains mixed and, while wet weather brings no guarantees, it always presents us with opportunities.”
Norbert Haug
“To start ahead of one of the top three teams´ drivers is the best result that we currently can achieve and Nico did an excellent job extracting everything possible from our car in qualifying. Michael had a little moment in the last chicane and found his car generally not as well balanced as yesterday. Tomorrow our target will be to score as many points as possible and hopefully we can be in the mix for a top five result - the forecast says rain, so tomorrow will be quite unpredictable.”
* Official photos and report courtesy of MERCEDES GP PETRONAS *
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