Michael Schumacher thinks the Mercedes W03 is better suited to the Yeongam circuit than those visited in recent weeks and believes they are on target for a better weekend. Neither Mercedes reached Q3 in Japan but after finishing fifth today, Michael sees that as a realistic goal tomorrow.
“I was pleased with both sessions today. As expected, it looks like our car is better suited to the circuit. The day went well, so I think we can get into the top ten tomorrow and plan our strategy on that basis. We have made some small changes, nothing major, and we looked ok on our long runs. Of course, I haven’t been able to study the times from the other teams yet, but we will try to secure a solid result this weekend.”
Teammate Nico Rosberg also showed promising pace, ending the afternoon in seventh, and was encouraged by the performance of the updated Mercedes.
“It was a good day for us and we made some progress over the two practice sessions. We had some small new things to try on the car which worked quite well, and we seem to be looking better here than in Suzuka. So I’m looking forward to tomorrow and seeing where we are compared to the other cars.”
As it stands at the moment, Team Principal Ross Brawn feels they are stronger in qualifying trim than they are in race-spec but is hopeful that will change before Sunday.
“We’ve had a very solid Friday working through our planned programme and were able to complete a lot of running. The car seems reasonable on lower fuel levels, although there is still work to be done on high fuel. The grip evolves very rapidly here and I expect we will have a different track on Sunday to the one that we saw today, so we need to try and anticipate that. Overall it’s been a pretty reasonable day.”
