Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher didn’t have the greatest of weekend Down Under where, after being a four time race winner, he spent the majority of the second half of this year’s event languishing behind the Toro Rosso piloted by rookie racer Jaime Alguersuari, eventually muscling his way past the young Spaniard and the Sauber of Pedro de la Rosa just a few laps from the end.  

How did he end up there? Well, that happened at the start when he was the victim of an incident with Button and Alonso and the front wing of his Mercedes was damaged enough that he needed to pit. Therefore, this sent him all the way back down the field where he was forced to try and fight his way back up.

At the end of the day he crossed the line in tenth place for the final point of the day, however Schumacher managed to find the good in the weekend....

“I know that might sound awkward but I take a lot of good aspects from the race weekend in Melbourne. Of course that does not show at first sight but looking into our weekend more deeply, I find we did improve quite well and have a good reason to be quite satisfied - just not from the pure result obviously,” he said on his official website.

“But analysing qualifying I think both Nico and me could have been ranked 2 to 3 positions better. I had a too conservative set up in the end which was too much concentrated towards the race, plus I had a tear-off strip stuck in my front wing which too cost me some time. And going into the race from those better positions would have meant fighting for the podium.”