Mercedes GP entered this weekend's Spanish GP with a radically different car, which included a longer wheelbase, a revised engine cover and improvements to both the front and the rear wings. Many in the press were billing the changes as do-or-die for Schumacher, who had failed to shine in the first four races of his return to Formula One.
The changes played to Schumacher's strengths with the German showing massive signs of improvement in Friday's practices, finishing P3 in both.
And although he wasn't able to match the pace on Saturday, conceding that the car was not behaving as it had the previous day, he still claimed his highest grid slot of 2010, a P6.
"Today's qualifying was straightforward in my view. We had a good car yesterday meaning that conditions were quite ideal for us in terms of balance and so on," he said.
"Today admittedly, the car was not as perfect. It is little things that can trigger that change one way or the other, and whatever happened today just triggered us to fall over the edge towards the downside a little.
"Nevertheless, I feel a lot more comfortable driving the car that I have in my hands now. But there is a maximum that you can get out of it and that is what we have achieved today."
But while Schumacher is feeling more at home in his W01, the same cannot be said of his team-mate Nico Rosberg.
For the first time this season, he lost out to the seven-time World Champ in qualifying, finishing a tenth down in P8.
"It's been a difficult weekend for me and we need to look into the reasons for this and understand why. The changes that we have made with the car are obviously good and we have made a step forward but I haven't really been able to use the improvements so far," said Rosberg.
"Considering that I have found the car difficult to drive and haven't had the best of set-ups, our performance today was acceptable but it's not where I wanted to be fighting this weekend."
Source: Planet-F1
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