Michael Schumacher has revealed that his qualifying time is not a true reflection of Mercedes GP’s potential at Monza this weekend, with the German focused more on tomorrow's race. The seven-time Champion secured ninth on the grid with his fastest Q3 effort, beating team-mate Nico Rosberg by exactly seven tenths of a second.
"Qualifying today went mostly according to plan," Schumacher commented. "I don't think we could have taken much more; maybe I could have ended up one place higher. I didn't have an ideal fast lap as I tried to use the slip stream from Lewis but then he locked up in the second chicane which made me lock up too.
"However I will be on Soft tyres tomorrow which should be better for my race. As our race pace looked quite good yesterday, I was more focusing on the race and trying to use the tyres in the right way. For tomorrow, I will try to get a good start and take it from there."
Rosberg is also hopeful of making significant progress during the 53-lap race, a Grand Prix he will start on the harder Prime compound following his unique Q3 plan.
"I'm happy with today's qualifying and the compromise that we made to be strong in the race tomorrow," added Rosberg. "The performance in Q2 shows that the car is working well here, and we saved two sets of options which is good.
"I'm the only driver who took part in Q3 who will be starting on the Hard tyre, so it will be interesting and should help me a lot at the start of the race. I think it will be a really good race tomorrow."
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  S. Vettel | Red Bull | 01:22.275 | 15 |
| 2. | L. Hamilton | McLaren | 01:22.725 | 16 |
| 3. | J. Button | McLaren | 01:22.777 | 17 |
| 4. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 01:22.841 | 18 |
| 5. | M. Webber | Red Bull | 01:22.972 | 14 |
| 6. | F. Massa | Ferrari | 01:23.188 | 17 |
| 7. | V. Petrov | Lotus Renault | 01:23.530 | 19 |
| 8. | M. Schumacher | Mercedes | 01:23.777 | 13 |
| 9. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 01:24.477 | 17 |
| 10. | B. Senna | Lotus Renault | no time | 20 |
| Full results | ||||
| Michael Schumacher | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| More Michael Schumacher photos | |||
| Nico Rosberg | |||
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| More Nico Rosberg photos | |||
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