Mercedes Defend Schumacher after Malaysia Failure

Although Schumacher has been outpaced by his much younger teammate Nico Rosberg 3 times so far – only Vitaly Petrov has a 0-3 record after the first races of 2010 – his Mercedes GP managers insist nobody should write off the 7-time world champion's chances this season.

Team's CEO Nick Fry was the first to defend Schumacher amid recent critics from the German media, saying that the amount of valuable information and feedback provided by the German driver is extremely useful for the team.

“Michael is, for me, quite remarkable. Even this weekend, the level of feedback that he gives is something that I have never seen before - and that is just not in the debriefs. When you have the headphones on you hear amazing things – and in qualifying he was driving around almost giving a commentary. The FIA, who also listens, was also very impressed that a driver can do that,” said Fry after the Sepang race.

Michael Schumacher retired after 9 laps due to a wheel problem, but Fry insisted the German is on a learning curve to get back to his winning game in the series, after 3 years of absence.

“Every race he is learning a little bit more and it is all coming together slowly but surely, which is probably what you would expect. He has taken the disappointment of what happened in Malaysia very well and he is old enough to realise that sometimes these things happen. He has taken away the positives again and I would not underestimate him,” added the British official.