Schumacher says F-duct is not enough for pole at 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix – Formula 1 news
Mercedes AMG driver Michael Schumacher says that he is not certain that the innovative DRS-activated F-duct design of W03 will be enough for securing the pole at 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix which is going to be held at Sepang International Circuit, this weekend.
There have been a lot of discussions regarding the new design of Mercedes car which boosts up the top pace of the car on track. Where on one side it has been considered as an interesting novelty for the season ahead, on the other hand it has been criticized
by many contenders.
For instance, Eric Boullier, the team principal of Lotus said that they would challenge the results of the qualifying on last Saturday, over the legality of Mercedes’ design.
Nevertheless, the technical delegate, Charlie Whiting said it to be legal, afterwards.
Moreover, when Schumacher was asked about the competitiveness of F-duct for claiming the pole in the next race at Sepang circuit he said, “Certainly not. There is no doubt that we have an innovation that gives us some performance but I don't think that it
is a huge performance and that we only live from this. We'll find out. I can't really quantify this. I think some get a little bit too excited about this compared to reality, but that's the usual story.”
The seven-time world champion made his comeback in F1 couple of years ago after he retired in 2006. After struggling in the first year of his return, in which he was completely outperformed by his teammate, Nico Rosberg, he showed a reasonable improvement
in his performance in 2011.
Furthermore, he had shown some impressive performances at first GP in which he dominated in the second free practice session on Friday while stood at 4th place after the qualifying on Saturday. However, he was retired during the first race on Sunday due
to a gearbox issue.
“It was a one-off. We did quite a few thousand kilometres in winter testing and never had this issue. We understood it though, and fixed it,” he said.
Besides, he said that they would be ready for the next race this weekend.
Tags: