Schumacher believes he was impeded by Hamilton

Michael Schumacher believes he could’ve qualified higher up the order had he not lost time during the latter stages of Q2, as the likes of Lewis Hamilton allegedly impeded the seven-time World Champion. The German initially qualified 13th, but will incur a 10-place grid drop from Singapore last time out and will instead start 23rd on the grid.

After only just progressing through to Q2 after initially struggling to set a time within the 107% rule, Michael Schumacher endured yet another frustratingly uncompetitive qualifying performance after only being able to qualify 13th for the race. However, the German is adamant that he lost time during turn eleven throughout Q2, with Lewis Hamilton supposedly impeding the charging German.

“It was a shame that we couldn’t do more today, after things hadn’t looked too bad this morning, but we simply didn’t get the performance together.” Explained Michael Schumacher, after another disappointing qualifying performance. “Perhaps I could have made it through to Q3, because the data showed that I lost two-tenths in turn 11 because of traffic, but I wasn’t quite sure what Hamilton was doing ahead of me. I saved a lot of tyre sets and in that respect got the maximum out of the situation. Now we need to wait and see what happens tomorrow. I will be certainly aiming for the best possible result, starting from the back of the grid.”

Michael Schumacher’s team-mate, Nico Rosberg, also suffered an uncompetitive qualifying performance at Suzuka. Just like Schumacher, he also dropped out after Q2, however he is hopeful that the teams high fuel pace will produce a competitive result during the race. Michael Schumacher will have a tough 53-lap race, as he starts from the last row of the grid alongside the HRT of Narain Karthikeyan.

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