Michael Schumacher was a happy man after practice in Monaco, having finished the quicker afternoon session in fifth place, 0.239s off the quickest time.
While he was behind team mate Nico Rosberg, Schumacher clearly enjoyed being back in action on the streets of the principality after three years away, and he even had a trip across the chicane when he pushed a little too hard.
“I got back into the rhythm of the track, particularly in the long run by the end,” said Schumacher. “I increased the pace again. I’m quite confident, things are good. The car definitely handles quite reasonably here. Honestly I think it’s one of the big issues is that other teams have a certain advantage in top speeds. Here they don’t take the profit from this, and therefore the whole field probably comes closer together.
“We need to wait. I don’t know how much fuel other teams were running in comparison to us. I guess we are closer together. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe they were running lots more fuel than us, and therefore it looks like it. So let’s wait.”
Michael said that a driver can’t always make the difference in Monaco.
“You can, but then again sometimes it depends. You think you do, but then the car doesn’t do exactly what you want to do, so you’re not able to prove that.”
Adam Cooper F1 