One to forget for Mercedes

Nico Rosberg finished the Indian Grand Prix in 11th place today with team-mate Michael Schumacher classified in P22.

Nico completed a one-stop strategy, running soft then hard tyres, and madehis pit stop on lap 27 Michael suffered a first lap right-rear puncture after contact withanother car at the first corner He made two stops on laps one and 33, starting the race on the hard tyre,then running two sets of soft tyresDrivers Car No. Chassis No. Race Result / Fastest Lap Nico Rosberg 8 F1 W03 / 07 P11 1:29.492 Michael Schumacher 7 F1 W03 / 09 P22 1:29.230

Weather Hazy Temperatures Air: 29-30C Track: 31-36C

Nico RosbergFinishing just outside of the points is always tough, and it was a hardafternoon for us out there. Starting with new tyres, I hoped to be able tomake up a couple of places but we just didn't have the pace so I had to keepfighting off the cars coming from behind me. It's a difficult time for usbut we are learning for next year so that's one positive thing. Michael SchumacherThat was a pretty unsatisfactory race today. It was effectively over justafter the start; I lost so much time getting back to the pits with thepuncture that any hope of scoring points was gone. In the meantime, the pacewas pretty good but I was too far behind to make up more than a fewpositions. In the end, we had to retire the car for technical reasons.Ross Brawn We are racing in a closely-matched field this season, where a few tenths ofa second in lap time make a significant difference to your position. At themoment, we are on the wrong end of those precious tenths and that once againleft us outside the points this afternoon. Nico made his one-stop strategywork well, looking after his tyres so that he still had reasonable speed atthe end of both stints, but otherwise he had a relatively quiet race. As forMichael, the contact at the first corner made it an uphill battle for himfrom turn two onwards, and left him at the back of the field. However, byrunning two stints on the option tyre, he was able to show respectable speedat some points of the race. We brought his car in before the end of the raceas a precaution after we became aware of some gearbox concerns.Norbert HaugMichael suffered contact on the opening lap, which caused a puncture and puthim to the back of the field after his pit stop. He retired the car with agearbox issue five laps before the finish. As for Nico, his car didn't havethe speed to score points after starting from 10th position. We have a lotof work to do and everybody in the team is well aware of it.


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