Schumacher Cool Despite Torrid Race

World Champion Michael Schumacher said that is was easier to keep his cool after his disastrous Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday than it was when he crashed out of the Monaco Grand Prix back in May.

German Schumacher, whose only retirement of the season came in Monaco when he crashed in the tunnel, posted his worst finish of the year when he ended up in 12th place at the Shanghai International Circuit.

He decided to start from the pitlane after qualifying 17th because of a spin and he suffered an incident-filled race that included a collision with Jaguar driver Christian Klien, a puncture and a spin.

"That was not my weekend but I've had so many good weekends this year," said Schumacher. "I was certainly much more angry in Monte Carlo than I am now because here it is racing. In Monte Carlo I can't explain what happened."

It was the first time Schumacher had finished a race without scoring a point for five years and he suggested his collision with Austrian Klien was a racing incident and claimed that a loss of rear downforce had caused him to spin.

"I thought I was inside him (Klien)," said Schumacher. "I thought maybe he had closed in front of me and took his line and that resulted in a collision. My car felt a little bit funny at that stage but I don't think that was a big problem.

"Then I was just fighting with Alonso and I got too close in an important area of the corner and lost the rear downforce and just spun off. After that I guess I had a tyre failure and from that moment the race was over.

"You never give up until the end - you never know, you can have people having problems and you would be very silly if you weren't there. I didn't expect that to happen but there is nothing to lose.

"There was a lot of action. We are disappointed at taking that number of points out of the race but we have still won the Chinese Grand Prix this weekend with Rubens and those are the important factors.

"I was very happy that one car at least took the win, that's what's important for me. For the first race in China it was a great moment for us as a team. I would have wished to have a good result for Chinese fans and also for my team."