Michael Schumacher believes he could have added to his championship points tally if it wasn’t for an incident with Renault’s Vitaly Petrov in Valencia on Sunday. The Mercedes GP driver damaged his front wing after making contact with the Russian on Lap 15, forcing another visit to the pit lane en route to 17th place at the chequered flag.
"Not a very satisfying race for me today," the seven-time Champion began. "The outcome was decided after Lap 15 when I slid into Petrov and lost the points I could perhaps have achieved.
"Our race pace should have allowed me to finish more or less where I started, but that is only speculation after the incident. I saw Petrov quite late, even though I was aware that he was coming, and tried to brake as late as possible and go round the corner with him.
"But when I wanted to draw back, I locked the front wheel and slipped into him, which was clearly my mistake. From then onwards, the race was done and I just had to drive the car over the finish line. We will now look ahead to Silverstone which is one of our home races."
Team-mate and compatriot Nico Rosberg, who claimed six points, added: "I'm happy with my seventh place today as that is the maximum that we could have achieved and we got everything out of the car. It was great to overtake Jenson (Button) at the start, and we made the right strategy choice to go for three stops.
"The introduction of DRS was a positive for the race here in Valencia, and we saw some nice overtaking moves. Now we need to keep pushing for our two home races to close the gap to the fastest teams. I'm sure the whole team will work very hard before Silverstone, and I look forward to racing in front of so many people from the team and their families."
Petrov: Luckily, I saw Schumacher coming
Vitaly Petrov was pleased to have spotted Michael Schumacher in his wing mirrors during Sunday’s European Grand Prix in Valencia, with the Mercedes having exiting the pits and lightly tagged the back of his Renault. As the Russian - who was not affected by the incident – went on to claim 15th place, team-mate Nick Heidfeld picked up the final point in tenth.
“The incident with Schumacher did not cause a puncture,” Petrov explained after the race. “He seemed to exit the pits very quickly and did not seem to be able to stop his car coming into the first corner. Luckily, I saw him in my mirror but there was still some contact. We need to sit down now and carefully analyse where and why we are losing pace so we can have a better race at Silverstone.”
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