Sunday: Mercedes limited by its tire management
As often, the Achilles' heel of Mercedes was the tires. But Kamui Kobayashi also got involved in the Silver Arrows' race, forcing Nico Rosberg to retire for the second time in a row. Michael Schumacher, for his part, had to endure the mismatch between the Pirelli tires and the F1 W03 throughout the race, which relegated him to a distant 13th place.
Michael Schumacher – 13th:
« There are races where nothing goes right and after which you have to move on. This was one of those races. We weren’t able to get the tires to work properly over the distance, which made our lap times inconsistent and contributed to our performance drop. We’re just going to forget this race, look forward, and hope we can make up for it in the upcoming races. »
Nico Rosberg – Retirement:
« Unfortunately, it’s the second bad weekend in a row for me, and it’s very frustrating to be taken out a second time in the first few corners of the race. Kobayashi hit me from behind today and my race was over. The small positive takeaway from this weekend is our qualifying performance, which was a little bit better. Now, I’m looking forward to India and hoping for a bit more luck there. »
