RACE NEWS // 10.07.2011
Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher finished in sixth and ninth places respectively today at the end of an action-packed British Grand Prix at Silverstone, taking the MERCEDES GP PETRONAS team to fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.
Both drivers started the race on intermediates tyres, meaning that they no longer had to use both dry compounds. Nico ran a two-stop strategy, stopping for option tyres on laps 12 and 30, and making his final set last 22 laps.
Michael's race was compromised by a collision with Kamui Kobayashi on lap 9 whilst running in ninth place. This forced Michael to pit for a new nose and cost him a 10s stop-go penalty.Michael made three stops: on lap 9 for option tyres and a new nose, lap 16 for the stop-go, and on lap 31, again for options.
Ross was quite happy after the race and what he called a “solid result for the team” ; “after starting ninth and 13th respectively, Nico and Michael made was a good progress up the field. They had mixed fortunes at the start - Michael gained four positions, while Nico dropped three places as he lost out in the first few corners. Michael's race was obviously spoiled by his collision and it carried a double penalty, as he did a slow lap to the pits and then had the stop-go penalty. However, after that he drove very well and climbed back from as low as 17th to score two points.
Nico's race was more straightforward, but we set him a real challenge asking him to go the end of the race from lap 30, and he did an extremely solid job to achieve that. This was the first race for this car specification, with new exhaust outlets and aerodynamic developments, and we had only an hour of dry running, mainly with one car, before qualifying. With that in mind, we can be encouraged by our performance today. One of our previous difficulties had been making the tyres last properly, but both drivers managed to run over 115km on a set of options this afternoon, which suggests we have made some good progress in this area.”
Norbert lamented the fact that the first part of the race didn’t go according to plan: “Nico lost three places on lap one whereas Michael gained four. Taking into consideration that Nico completed the first lap in 12th, sixth place is a respectable result. We showed today that we could handle the tyres during a two-stop strategy, when most of the top ten finishers chose three stops. Michael had an eventful race, touching Kobayashi's Sauber in the early stages, which forced him into the pits early for a nose change, and some laps later, a stop-go penalty. He then dropped back to 17th, so his recovery to ninth place was impressive. Well done to our team at one of our home races. We all will work very hard to further improve our package for our next home race at the Nürburgring in a fortnight.”
Credit: Mercedes GP (www3.mercedes-gp.com)
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