• Chinese Grand Prix

'Too many bad emotions' - Schumacher

April 18, 2010

There was no disguising Michael Schumacher's frustration after another disappointing performance at the Chinese Grand Prix, the scene of his last Formula One win back in 2006.

After a good tyre-call early on had put him as high as fifth, he slid back down through the field after absorbing tussles with Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa, and finished in tenth. That team-mate Nico Rosberg finished on the podium, nearly a minute ahead, was not lost on him.

"Today was one of those races that you do not want to remember, just like the whole weekend really," he said. "It was not good for me and not good from me. As you imagine, there were some good emotions but there were unfortunately too many bad emotions. At the beginning I thought we were quite clever when some others changed for intermediates but it turned out [they made] the wrong decision.

"My strategy in that respect was not very impressive as in the last 10 laps my tyres were just gone and seemed to be more slicks than intermediates. I was one of those drivers who had gone onto the last set quite early and we should have done that differently and positioned the tyres better."

"I had a nice battle with Lewis at some point, some nice kissing to each other. In general I had some good and tight fights which was fun but with my last stop being probably too early, in the end I just couldn't do anything and my fights were quite hopeless then. Even congratulations to Nico, who made it up to the podium so at least one of us scored good points."

Schumacher said that the situation regarding tyres changes and which ones to use was new to him. "These intermediates are slightly different to what I know from the past and you have to pace yourself dramatically in order to keep them alive for long enough. The difficultly was to predict how long the rain is going to last or not going to last. Do we change back to dries, and how quick you can push? It's a new experience for me."

There was no hiding Rosberg's delight at his second podium in succession. "It was an eventful race and we made very good choices which put us in contention for the result today. Following advice from Jock and the team, I decided to stay out on slicks and give it a go when the first showers hit. I was out there just thinking please stop raining! But it was the right call and it was a nice feeling to be leading the race for a while.

"When it started raining again, I suffered quite badly from tyre degradation on the intermediates and Jenson was able to get past. We didn't seem to quite have the pace on inters but third place is great and we've made a step in the right direction this weekend."