Michael Schumacher says he was lucky to finish Belgian Grand Prix with five gears – Formula 1 news
Michael Schumacher of Mercedes says that he was lucky to finish the race at Spa without the sixth gear.
He took his second pit stop to fight again for some positions but he lost his sixth gear seven laps prior to the finish line, therefore he was not successful in achieving his desires.
He said that he was fighting in the early laps with Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso and some of the other drivers so he had to push his tyres. He added that his tyres were wearing out therefore, he had to come to for the pit stop.
Schumacher said, “Fighting in the early laps with Ricciardo and some of the other guys I needed to push my tyres and that was probably the deciding factor why we had to come in again.”
Furthermore, he said that they could have finished the race with the same tyre settings, without taking the second pit stop, but he is sure that he would have ended in the same position.
“We could have finished on that set, but I'm pretty sure I would have ended up in the same position,” he said.
Moreover, he said that it was a good decision to take another pit stop so that they could fight for some more positions, but their strategy went in vein because they lost their sixth gear seven laps before the finish line, he had to conclude the race with
five gears only.
Additionally, he said that he was lucky enough to make it to the finish line with five gears.
“I had to stop thinking about that seven laps from the end because I lost sixth gear and then it was just luck to actually finish the race,” the German driver added.
He said that he enjoyed driving in the 300th Grand Prix of his career, however he felt a little bit sad at not being able to attain a top position despite fighting for it, during the race.
Schumacher finished the 44-lap Belgian GP attaining 7th position. He completed the race with a gap of 53.3 seconds from the leader of the race, Jenson Button of McLaren.
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