Brawn frustrated by team 'cock-up'

Brawn had high hopes that his team could deliver its best qualifying performance of the season so far on the streets of Monte Carlo, but both Rosberg and Schumacher lost their best chances through traffic.

And worst of all for the team, whose driver line-up sixth and seventh, a problem with Rosberg's exit from the pits meant that he managed to hold up Schumacher on track too.

"I feel extremely frustrated about today because we had a good car all weekend, and as a team we didn't perform well in Q3," said Brawn.

"There was a problem with Nico's car getting out of the garage. We knew the last thing we wanted was to have our two cars on the same piece of track, because if there had been an incident both cars would get caught up.

"So the plan was to split them, but when we came to release Nico's car we had a problem releasing it, and it left the garage 20 or 30 seconds later than we planned. So then we had both cars together.

"Plus, Nico was getting squeezed between Michael behind him and Rubens [Barrichello] in front of him, and we didn't manage it very well as a team.

"Michael was annoyed after the second or third lap got spoiled, but when I explained what happened he was okay - just frustrated. But I think all of us were frustrated today because we did have a reasonable car around here and, as you saw in Q2, we were looking forward to final qualifying and we cocked up."

Rosberg apologised to Schumacher after qualifying for holding him up, and said he too was a bit annoyed by what happened.

"For sure Q3 didn't go my way and that is why I am very disappointed, because I think at least it would have been a front row grid position today - and with the chance to go all the way to the front if I had got everything together.

"It is disappointing because it didn't go my way and just the whole Q3, the whole thing didn't go right. I never got into a rhythm because I was stuck in a bad place between two cars with Barrichello in front and Michael behind, so I could never push to get a rhythm.

"I never had a good lap until the last lap, where I then had a few issues with brake balance and made a mistake as a result, so it didn't come together. It is disappointing but that is it. We need to move on."