Mercedes Benz

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

Montréal, Canada, Jun 11, 2011

MERCEDES GP PETRONAS drivers Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher qualified in sixth and eighth places at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal today ahead of Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix.


• Nico and Michael qualified within 0.05s of each other with their quickest lap times in Q3 this afternoon
• Both drivers completed just 14 laps in total, and only one run in each of the three qualifying sessions
• Each has saved one set of new option tyres for the race by completing a single run in Q3

Nico Rosberg
“Generally we have made good progress this weekend and qualifying in sixth position was good for us today. I’m pretty confident that we can do better in the race, certainly compared to our pace in Monaco. We’ve put in a lot of work on race performance and I hope we can translate that tomorrow. It’s good to have saved a set of new options as well.”

Michael Schumacher
“We can be quite happy with today’s qualifying. I had lost drive momentarily after turn four during my last lap but otherwise I had a clean lap. We will have to analyse why that happened, but all went pretty well other than that. We have developed our set-up in the right direction over the weekend, and the long runs looked quite good this morning, so we should be ok in the race.”

Ross Brawn
“We had very solid qualifying session today with both the drivers and team doing a good job. We have given ourselves a decent chance with the tyres and have a set of new options left for both drivers for the race, so overall it was a pretty decent afternoon. We know for the future that we have to find some lap time but so far, we have made the best of what we have this weekend.”

Norbert Haug
“It was a respectable performance from our team and drivers. Nico in sixth place was eight-tenths behind Vettel´s pole time, while Michael was five-hundredths, and two positions, behind his team-mate. In practice this morning, we focused on race simulation work and our lap times looked quite ok; as a result, we saved tyres in qualifying. With two runs in Q3, we might have been able to climb a position or two on the grid. However, a fresh set of tyres for tomorrow will be even more beneficial - if it stays dry, of course.”