Formula 1: Michael Schumacher silences Mercedes GP critics
Michael Schumacher responded to the criticism on his team by setting the early pace at Jerez on the second day of the pre-season testing.
2010 was a struggle for Mercedes GP as they could only manage to end as the fourth best. They admitted that the drivers were not provided with a race-winning car which saw them struggling throughout the season.
Mercedes also faced criticism for hiring the seven-time Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher who was below par in the season and finished ninth overall in the drivers’ championship.
Schumacher struggled with the Bridgestone tyres and his teammate finished with almost double the points scored by the German legend. Mercedes vowed to bounce back in 2011 and claimed that Schumacher would be back in business in the new season.
However, the team did not find pace in the first pre-season test session which raised questions over its performance in the upcoming season. On Thursday, Nico Rosberg ended as ninth fastest overall and Mercedes GP faced a lot of criticism for that.
But on Friday, Schumacher silenced all the critics with a strong performance. He set the fastest lap time of 1 minute and 20.352 seconds to lead the opening half of the testing.
The former champion bettered the lap time of Ferrari’s Felipe Massa by just 0.061 seconds, which was posted by the Brazilian on Thursday. The third fastest lap time came from Red Bull’s Mark Webber, who was 1.261 seconds off Schumacher’s pace.
The lap time by Schumacher was promising, but the seven-time champion stated that his team was not one of the fastest and it will be difficult for Mercedes to finish on podiums in the initial part of the season.
The car has performed well on shorter stints but fails in the longer runs which provides the other teams an opportunity to overtake them comfortably. However, their performance on short stints will give them hopes of doing well during the qualifying stages
of the races.
Mercedes GP are expected to bring a major upgrade to their car for the first race of the 2011 season in Bahrain which starts on 13 March, 2011.
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