Michael Schumacher will start the Australian Grand Prix from 11th on the grid after MercedesGP failed to fire in qualifying today.
The seven-time World Champion was eliminated prior to the final segment of qualifying, and was one of several drivers to experience KERS issues during the session.
Schumacher’s team-mate Nico Rosberg ended Q3 in seventh place after a mistake on his final lap – capping a disappointing day for the team.
“Clearly that was not an ideal start to the season, and I cannot deny that I am disappointed,” said Schumacher.
“It’s not about that KERS only worked intermittently or that I could probably have made it to Q3, but it is because our performance did not turn out as we expected.
“From our testing experience, we were around the pace of Ferrari, however this did not translate today.
“We faced more problems here than at the test with several issues throughout the whole weekend.
“We now have to look deeply into it to understand why it turned out to be like this, because for the moment we are not where we wanted to be.”
Team principal Ross Brawn believes that the W02 still has strong potential, and is optimistic for the race.
“We expected to be more competitive however we haven’t got the car working as well as we had hoped today,” said Brawn.
“The fundamentals are good but we’ve had rather too many challenges this weekend to be able to get the most out of it.
“We are in good shape for the race tomorrow in terms of tyre availability and the car looked pretty reasonable on the longer runs so let’s wait and see what happens.”
CLICK HERE for Speedcafe.com’s qualifying report
See below for a video highlights package of Qualifying
