Sunday: Balance issues for Rosberg, Accident for Schumacher
The last race of the season for the Mercedes GP team was not very good. Nico Rosberg struggled with the balance of his car, which led to significant tire wear and he finished only 7th behind Force India's Sutil, among others. Michael Schumacher, on the other hand, had his race ruined following a contact with Bruno Senna. The seven-time world champion still expressed satisfaction with his race.
Nico Rosberg – 7th
«Today it was not an ideal end to the season, and even though I scored some points, I expected to finish better ranked than 7th. I didn’t get a good start and I had overheating problems with my tires because the track temperature was very high. Therefore, I couldn’t manage my tires very well throughout the race, which impacted my pace. Now I look to the future and hope to do even better in 2012. I look forward to this winter as we are working very hard to develop a better car for next year.»
Michael Schumacher – 15th
It was a bit unfortunate, the incident with Bruno, perhaps caused by a lack of experience, but these kinds of things happen. If that hadn’t happened, I think we could have had a good race with points. After the accident, all I could do was fight as much as possible and hope for the rain that ultimately never came.
In the first stint, after the accident, my single-seater was no longer very well balanced and I had a lot of oversteering. Unfortunately, we couldn’t change that during the tire change, which affected the balance in the second stint, although it was better in the third.
We now look forward to next season. With all the efforts that have been made to develop the car, I am convinced that we can take another step forward to place Mercedes where it should be: fighting at the front.
Ross Brawn – Director of the Mercedes GP team
Nico did not have a very good balance on his car today, he suffered from oversteer, and he had to carefully manage his tires. He experienced very high wear and therefore had a frustrating afternoon trying to manage an average balance in a situation where the tires are really critical.
«Michael had a great battle with Senna at the start of the race, and his overtaking move at the beginning of lap 10 was clean. But Senna showed his inexperience by defending the position he had already lost, and the contact ruined Michael’s race. After an unscheduled stop to replace the punctured tire, Michael was able to show the pace of the car, thanks to better balance, and his lap times were competitive.»
I would like to thank the entire team in Brackley, Brixworth, and Stuttgart for their unwavering efforts throughout the season. There are achievements we must be proud of this season, such as our consistently fast pit stops, and we know what we need to do for next year.
I would finally like to highlight the excellent support shown by all our partners in 2011. Formula 1 is a true team sport, and they have played their part in helping us build a future filled with success.
