The German reportedly wanted to get out of Shanghai and head back home immediately after the race, but the air traffic chaos that affected the world of Formula One got him stuck on Asian land. Consequently, he had to appear before the media and explain his performance on Sunday.
“In general I had some good and tight fights which was fun but with my last stop being probably too early, in the end I just couldn't do anything and my fights were quite hopeless then,” said Schumacher.
In the last part of the race, Schumacher was overtaken by a bunch of drivers, among which Renault rookie Vitaly Petrov and rain non-specialist and former Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa. His incredibly bad run late in the race was however not blamed on him, but on tire deterioration, as argued by team principal Ross Brawn.
“We have some issues that we need to understand as the deterioration of his tires and therefore his pace is a problem that we need to resolve before the next race. We haven't quite got the car at the moment but when we do, we know that we can get the job done,” said Brawn.
“It was not a good race weekend for Michael unfortunately. We will investigate what the problems were and I am convinced we will all see much stronger results from him rather sooner than later,” added Mercedes' motorsport director Norbert Haug.
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