Schumacher: “I was angry with myself”

Michael Schumacher says he was angry with himself after a below par performance in China, and insists that the race was just a blip after he’d made upward progress since the start of the season.

Mercedes is pinning its hopes on major revisions to the package for this weekend, and Schumacher is expecting to be more comfortable with the car.

When he met the media in Spain on Thursday afternoon the seven-times World Champion inevitably faced a lot of questions about his form.

“Naturally the joy is higher if you win races, no doubt,” said Schumacher. “And China – no worries – I was very disappointed, and I was angry at myself. But things will be different.

“There was a trend, and if you look at this, except China, things were going in the right direction. Without in the final moment, like in Malaysia, [being able] to actually position ourselves. But then there were circumstances being part of this. Nevertheless it’s only four races that we have done. So let’s see.

Asked whether he would have no excuses now that the car has been modified, Schumacher said: “I’m sure there are always excuses you can find if you want to. But the matter of fact is that some might see now I have the car and now I have to perform and now it should be and if not and blah, blah, blah.

“I’m less thinking this way, because it’s going to be the first time we worked with this car, and only after we’ll understand what is the positive and what is the negative about it. Again I just sort of feel very positive that I will follow the trend after Malaysia, and not what happened in China.”

Michael also acknowledged that while he has always had talented rivals, there are more competitive cars around today..

“It’s certainly a very high level of talent, but I don’t think it’s higher. There was Fernando at the time, and Mika Hakkinen and so on, I think they were all at this level. What you do now have is you have more cars on an even playing field, and you have the good drivers that are around in those cars. So you have a higher level of competition.”