Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher blamed his Q2 elimination in the qualifying session of the Indian Grand Prix on a tyre vibration issue during the session, but admitted this didn't explain the gap he had to team mate Nico Rosberg.
Schumacher was eliminated in the second part of the qualifying session, and will line up 11th for tomorrow's race thanks to Vitaly Petrov taking his grid drop penalty.He failed to make the final ten minute shootout, and ended up qualifying five places lower down on the grid than team mate Rosberg, who will start the race from 7th.
And although Schumacher suggested that there were reasons behind his early elimination, he admitted that he was at a loss to explain the overall gap to Rosberg.
"Qualifying today was not really very good for us," the German lamented after the session.
"At first I hit some traffic, and then on my final run in Q2, there was again vibrations on the set of tyres which I used which was not helpful."
But he went on: "Saying that, this certainly does not explain the time gap to Nico so we need to understand what the reason was for that and get on top of it.
"As for the race tomorrow, this should work out better for me, and my aim undoubtedly is to score some points. I'm not really sure which side of the grid will be the better one, so I will just take it from there and try to gain as much as possible."
Rosberg himself, who will start from the fourth row of the grid alongside Force India's Adrian Sutil, said that he was happy with the job he had put in, but believed a stronger result was possible.
"I'm pleased that we made a step forward today but we could perhaps have finished higher," he mused, "In Q1, I hit a kerb quite heavily and damaged the floor which lost some of the car's downforce for the rest of qualifying.
"I was on my quickest lap at the end of Q3 but unfortunately I had to slow down for the yellow flag after Felipe [Massa]'s incident so that cost me some time."
And for the race, he added: "I will push hard to gain places tomorrow and have a good race on this fantastic track."
Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn added: "We got caught out a little in traffic on occasions which didn't help as it was particularly close out there.
"It's a shame that we didn't get through to Q3 with Michael, and he was unhappy with his final set of tyres.
"Nico did a great job, especially considering that he was struggling a little with the car yesterday, so all credit to him and his team for getting the car in good shape for qualifying."
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