• Mercedes news

Schumacher urges calm at Mercedes

Michael Schumacher: "It is clear that we need to understand our car better" © Getty Images

Enlarge

Michael Schumacher is positive Mercedes can improve at the upcoming Hungarian Grand Prix and urged his team to stay calm despite a disappointing result at its home race last weekend.

After Nico Rosberg scored a podium at the British Grand Prix two races ago, Mercedes could only manage eighth and ninth at Hockenheim as the team's form continued to fluctuate. However, Schumacher is not concerned and believes Hungary will be highly useful to develop the car.

"The German Grand Prix last weekend was clearly disappointing for us but we have seen a variety of performances from our team over the past few races," he said. "With this in mind, I will still go to Hungary with a positive feeling.

"It is clear that we need to understand our car better, and the track in Budapest plus more time to evaluate our upgrades should help us in that respect. As I said after the last race, we have to remain calm, look into all the details and analyse our performance in order to learn as much as possible from such weekends. That is the way we have to go in order to improve our situation which may already be possible this coming weekend in Hungary."

Rosberg said Mercedes' focus had to be on qualifying, after both cars have struggled to make the cut for Q3 at times this season.

"Qualifying hasn't been our strong point recently so we will be working hard on our preparations over the weekend to give us the best chance in the race," he said. "I had a strong weekend in Hungary last year, finishing in fourth place, and it would be nice to be competing towards the front again this time around."

Considering Rosberg's podium finish at Silverstone, team principal Ross Brawn was disappointed to be so far off the pace of the front runners in Germany. However, he still remains upbeat about Hungary and believes, like Schumacher, it will be an important circuit to help improve the performance of the car.

"The team is doing a good job operationally but we need to find more pace from the car and we continue to work very hard to achieve this," he said. "Hungary is a technically demanding circuit and should be a good proving ground for our latest upgrades, providing further invaluable track testing time, as we work to find the optimum set-up."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.