• Italian Grand Prix

Schumacher takes positives from Monza

Michael Schumacher said a poor first took the edge off his race © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• Italian Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Nico Rosberg
• |
• Michael Schumacher

• Teams:
• Mercedes

Michael Schumacher believes Mercedes Italian Grand Prix showed a clear upwards trend in performance and he felt he could have finished higher.

Schumacher started from fourth and finished sixth as both Mercedes opted for a two-stop strategy. However, he believes there were plenty of positives to take from the result and with his fresher tyres he felt a few more laps would have resulted in a better finishing position.

"It was a fun race today - although I must admit that, following our performance on Friday, I had secretly hoped we would be able to move up the field. But we had a tricky first stint," he said. "After that, everything went really well, we were on the pace and I think we showed a clear upwards trend today. I kind of ran out of laps this afternoon and, if the race had been a bit longer, I'd have been able to battle even further forward. Overall, though, we got everything out of it today. Now we need to keep this trend going - and everybody in the team is working hard on it."

Nico Rosberg, who finished seventh, reported a similar trend in his race with the car finishing with better performance than it started with.

"Seventh place is an improvement on my recent finishes so I'm satisfied with that today, although there may have been potential for more," he said. "I had no grip on my option tyres in the first stint, which were the same set that gave me problems in Q3. After the first stop, I had very good pace and was able to set a few fastest race laps and move up the field with some nice overtakes. It's nice to have had a better finish to a race weekend and I'm looking forward to more of the same in Singapore in a couple of weeks."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.