F1 2012 - Mercedes AMG GP Belgium Grand Prix Qualifying Report: Michael grabs 13th and Nico 23rd

[Scourge82]

The F1 season is finally back in full swing, unfortunately for Mercedes they started the second half of the season just as they finished the first half. Schumacher qualified 13th with Rosberg in 23rd place. The teams spent of Friday in the pits because of the severe downpours and that meant most of their setup runs were done on Saturday. Mercedes found themselves far off the pace and competing with the mid level teams.

This time around it was Nico Rosberg, who was out of luck. He failed to make any of the practice sessions and suffered a gearbox failure during Saturday's practice session. He went into qualifying with a 5 place grid penalty because of the gearbox change. With the lack of a setup Nico was left with a very slow car that saw him barely beat out the likes of HRT and Virgin Racing in 18th place but fail to make it into Q2.

Schumacher racing at his 300th grand prix and favorite track was expected to have a strong showing, but like Nico, the car lacked any speed. He was forced to switch to the softer tire compound to make it into Q2. In Q2 the best he could get was 13th place almost 2 seconds behind pole position winner Jensen Button in his Mclaren.

Nico Rosberg,

“This weekend isn’t really running to plan so far. Starting from the back of the grid tomorrow is really disappointing, although I had no chance to prepare my car due to the gearbox problem this morning.
So it took a bit of a time to find the right set-up in qualifying and it didn’t work out well at the end. I hope I can gain some positions in the race but I’m not overly optimistic as our car is not one of the quickest on this track. I will definitely push hard.”

Michael Schumacher,

“Well, what a pity today. I am really sorry for my fans but I am afraid I have to say that I got pretty much everything that we could from today. The car was not quick enough, and especially in the mid-sector we were too slow.
We now have to take it as it is and try to do the best we can in the race tomorrow. We will have further steps coming soon, so we will go on fighting.”

For Ross Brawn,

“It’s been a disappointing day all round for us. Qualifying was tough, and it proved pretty tricky to get the tyres in the right operating window. In fairness to Nico, he didn’t have much of a chance as he missed most of P3 this morning, the only opportunity to have had some time on a dry track.

Michael had a reasonable run and that was about the best we could have achieved with the car that we have at the moment. Clearly it’s not good enough and we will continue working very hard to make improvements.”

Norbert Haug said this after the session

“Michael got everything out of the car that was possible today. It did not help us that the rain yesterday meant that no preparation for today was possible but of course that applies to everybody.

On top of that, Nico did not get any running in this morning's only dry session due to a gearbox problem which will give him with a five place grid penalty. This is of course not the start that we have wished for after the summer break. Our target is to do a better job tomorrow.

Full Qualifying Results

Position	Driver		Team
Third qualifying session completed
1	Great Britain	J Button	McLaren
2	Japan	K Kobayashi	Sauber
3	Venezuela	P Maldonado	Williams
4	Finland	K Raikkonen	Lotus
5	Mexico	S Perez	Sauber
6	Spain	F Alonso	Ferrari
7	Australia	M Webber	Red Bull
8	Great Britain	L Hamilton	McLaren
9	France	R Grosjean	Lotus
10	Great Britain	P Di Resta	Force India
11	Germany	S Vettel	Red Bull
12	Germany	N Hulkenberg	Force India
13	Germany	M Schumacher	Mercedes
14	Brazil	F Massa	Ferrari
15	France	J Vergne	Toro Rosso
16	Australia	D Ricciardo	Toro Rosso
17	Brazil	B Senna	Williams
18	Germany	N Rosberg	Mercedes
19	Finland	H Kovalainen	Caterham
20	Russian Federation	V Petrov	Caterham
21	Germany	T Glock	Marussia
22	Spain	P de la Rosa	HRT
23	France	C Pic	Marussia
24	India	N Karthikeyan	HRT

[Sticky]

I don't know how I didn't see this, sorry Scourge. Long weekend with the holiday

[Scourge82]

It's cool man, as long as the results get looked at

[LZH]

Man that first wreck knocking Alonso and Hamilton out really hurt their points standings. They must be PISSED.