Schumacher not experiencing 'big joy'

The Mercedes driver was caught up in at least two wheel-banging incidents at the final three corners of the circuit, the first of which was with Vitaly Petrov's Renault early in the race and caused Schumacher to pit for a new nose and front wing.

The German then dropped as low as 17th before climbing back up the order.

Schumacher qualified inside the top ten and expressed confidence before the race that the W02 is improving, but he was never a factor in the race while Nico Rosberg finished fifth in the sister car.

"From where we came, going forward is always better than still having to defend going backwards and mostly I was able to go forward, but the big joy is not there right now, except some action, that's about it," Schumacher told the BBC afterwards.

"I said before the race that there was going to be some action and indeed I had lots of action," he added, accepting the blame for his collision with Petrov. "I guess I was responsible myself to have the result that I had because with Petrov I guess it was mostly my mistake, what happened there. I need to analyse it, because it was a bit strange that suddenly we got together and I lost my front wing.

"Anyway the race was a given from there, lots of fighting, lots of action, but for nothing. The golden helmet, that's what we call it in Germany, that's what I got and nothing else, so it's a bit of a shame."

Team principal Ross Brawn commented: "We'll look at the race and see. It was unfortunate because he seemed to have less problems with the tyres in the race, but he was often caught up with a lot of traffic."