Schumi: "we Don't Know What's Wrong"

[Senna 0]

Schumi: "We don't know what's wrong"

(Planetf1)

Michael Schumacher will spend his day off in Monaco desperately seeking a solution to a mystery handling problem which left him trailing in practice on Thursday.

The World Champion had high hopes of a competitive showing this weekend after retirements ruined strong performances in Spain and San Marino. But his hopes were dashed in second practice when a handling bug left him way off the pace.

Schumacher was 11th fastest in practice, over a second slower than Fernando Alonso's Renault, after bad vibrations made his life a misery.

Schumacher must now use the traditional Friday rest day to analyse data and work out a solution before qualifying on Saturday.

He said: "In general I was going into the weekend in quite a positive mood and this morning it went very well but then in the second session the car was not 100% right.

"We don't know what was wrong. There was a vibration but we don't know why. We have to analyse and control everything in detail and find the problem.

"For me it is hard to judge how competitive we are because the whole second session was handicapped by this vibration.

"There are a thousand things that could have been the reason for it and because of that we could not do a lot of work on the car set-up.

"So on Saturday morning we have to do a lot of work to do on set-up and then we have to see what we can do."

Technical director Ross Brawn was puzzled by the problem but appreciates the extra day to discover its cause.

"We haven't discovered what was wrong with it," said Brawn. "We had a bad vibration issue.

"We are still investigating it. Fortunately we have another day to investigate here - we don't know what it is but we are looking into it.

"The track gets quicker all the time and I am sure we will recover for Saturday and it is good we have a spare day on Friday."

Alonso, who is in prime position to relieve Schumacher of his world title, continued his superb form this season by setting the fastest time of the day.

The Spaniard's Renault has been overshadowed by McLaren's new-found pace in the last two races and is firmly concentrated on Saturday's qualifying when he expects more competition.

"It's good because obviously we have proved that the car is competitive here and we are extremely happy with the performance of the car," he said. "But at the same time it means nothing, Thursday practice.

"We have to check the data we have from Thursday and choose the right tyre for Saturday. The position at the end of the day does not matter much.

"I think Ferrari on Thursday were not fantastic but they will improve over the weekend and I think they will be fighting for a good position in the end.

"Maybe Toyota and Williams have too much fuel on board, maybe testing with old tyres - you never know, you just have to wait."

David Coulthard was the surprise of the afternoon session, with the Scotsman setting third quickest time for Red Bull.

Coulthard has been in the points in four of the last five races for his new team and Thursday's pace has given him renewed hope for a shock result.

The two-time Monaco winner said: "Obviously Thursday's practice is the first stage of a long weekend but things feel good.

"It's difficult to predict where we will qualify as it's hard to know what the other teams are doing with their fuel strategy.

"However, Monaco is one of those events that can throw up a slightly unusual result. Maybe it's possible to move slightly further up the field."