• Turkish Grand Prix

Schumacher reserving judgement on latest updates

Michael Schumacher finished the second practice session in seventh © Getty Images

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• Race:
• Turkish Grand Prix

• Championship:
• FIA Formula One World Championship

• Drivers:
• Nico Rosberg
• |
• Michael Schumacher

• Teams:
• Mercedes

Michael Schumacher has said it is too early to judge how much Mercedes' latest updates have improved the car.

The W01 looked quick on the tight and twisty Monaco circuit two weeks ago but driver errors in Q3 prevented it showing its true potential. The car has since undergone further development but Schumacher said the one-off nature of Monaco made it difficult to draw a true comparison.

"It's really difficult to judge what the current picture is after today's practice sessions, especially as we don't know who was running on what fuel loads," he said. "We certainly have some improvements on the car which you can notice but it is very difficult to quantify the full effects coming from Monaco to here and thus not having a clear reference and comparison. Clearly the improvements are in the right direction but as always it is a matter of how quick we develop compared to our competitors."

He added that he was enjoying the challenge of the Istanbul Park circuit.

"Turn eight is still a nice challenge here," Schumacher said. "It has small surprises in terms of bumps and it is fun to drive obviously. It is exciting and technical at the same time. Let's wait and see what is going to happen tomorrow."

Nico Rosberg finished the day one place ahead of Schumacher in sixth but said he had to deal with a busy workload.

"We made some good progress today and have been working hard with our updates for the car," he said. "It wasn't a perfect day as we lost some time in the process of evaluating the new developments, particularly in the second session, so I was playing catch-up this afternoon. However, we achieved a lot of interesting work and arrived at a decent balance by the end of the day so I am reasonably happy. We have a few question marks remaining and it will be a busy final practice session tomorrow. The early indications are that we have made a decent step forward and although we don't know how much yet, it is a good job from the guys at the factory and at the track to get everything here and working."

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