Schumacher hopeful of stronger race after saving a set of tyres

The Mercedes driver will start from eighth position and, having saved a set of soft tyres for the race, he is optimistic he will be able to enjoy a strong event.

Schumacher admitted he could not have extracted much more from the car today, although he conceded his flying lap in Q3 was not ideal.

"Qualifying today went mostly according to plan," said Schumacher.

"I don't think we could have taken much more; maybe I could have ended up one place higher. I didn't have an ideal fast lap as I tried to use the slip stream from Lewis but then he locked up in the second chicane which made me lock up too.

"However I will be on soft tyres tomorrow which should be better for my race. As our race pace looked quite good yesterday, I was more focusing on the race and trying to use the tyres in the right way. For tomorrow, I will try to get a good start and take it from there."

Team-mate Nico Rosberg, who also completed just one run in Q3, was happy to have saved tyres for the race too, having qualified in ninth position.

"I'm happy with today's qualifying and the compromise that we made to be strong in the race tomorrow," he said . "The performance in Q2 shows that the car is working well here, and we saved two sets of options which is good.

"I'm the only driver who took part in Q3 who will be starting on the hard tyre, so it will be interesting and should help me a lot at the start of the race. I think it will be a really good race tomorrow."