Despite managing to get both cars into the top ten in qualifying, Mercedes suffered their second pointless race in a row today at Korea. Nico Rosberg was once again eliminated in an early incident, whilst Michael Schumacher struggled for pace and finished a disappointed thirteenth.
Nico, along with McLaren’s Jenson Button, was an innocent party in the accident as he was hit by Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi on the first lap. The subsequent damage meant he had to retire on lap two. This follows his disappointing result at Suzuka a week ago when he was taken out in an accident on the first lap.
“Unfortunately this has been the second poor weekend in a row for me, and it’s very frustrating to be taken out twice in the first corners of the race. Kobayashi hit me from behind today and that was my race over. The one small positive to be taken from the weekend is our qualifying performance which was a small step forward. Now I’ll look forward to India and hope for a bit more luck there,” he said afterwards.
Michael Schumacher was able to avoid the opening lap mayhem, but struggled for pace all afternoon and finished outside the points once again.
“There are some races where nothing comes together and which you simply have to move on from straight away. This was one of them. We didn’t manage to get the tyres working properly over the race distance, which made for inconsistent lap times, and accounted for our step back in performance. So we will write this one off, look forward and hope that we will be able to get back on the front foot again in the upcoming races.”
“It was a difficult race for us today. Nico was hit by Kobayashi on the first lap for the second race in succession, and to lose him again through the error of another driver was extremely disappointing. Michael did all that he could today but we struggled to keep the tyres up to temperature,” Ross Brawn summarised.
“There were parts of the race where the tyres were working properly and we were more competitive, but too many periods where we struggled. We need to look at how we can improve that situation, and we will keep working hard to make progress at the final four races.”
