Schumacher says no more was possible

The seven-time champion was knocked out in Q2 and will have to start the German Grand Prix from 11th position, despite having said on Friday that he was aiming for a top five.

The Mercedes driver had to admit on Saturday there simply wasn't more performance in the car.

"There isn't much more to say about qualifying other than the result was what was achievable for us today," said Schumacher.

"Clearly it was disappointing because we had expected to be able to fight for fifth or sixth place but from the difference between our two cars, you can see our results are what the potential was.

"If I want to find something positive, it is that at least I will be starting from the better side of the grid and in the end, I prefer 11th to 10th place because of that. I had some issues with my brakes during qualifying but I do not rate that a real factor for the performance today.

"We are a bit stronger in race pace than in qualifying but we clearly wanted to achieve more for our fans. Let's hope that tomorrow the race will develop in a way that we can still show them something."

Team-mate Nico Rosberg was equally disappointed despite making it to Q3, the German finishing in ninth.

"I was hoping for a strong weekend here in Hockenheim in front of our fans but unfortunately I struggled a lot in qualifying today," he said. "It's really disappointing and it seems that we are just not making our developments work as well as we hoped this weekend which we need to look into.

"I hope that we find the problem with the car otherwise it is difficult to explain why we are not closer to the front. I had a lot of oversteer and that made it really difficult as I had to keep coming down on the front wing levels which did not help. I will do my best tomorrow to achieve a good result but it will be difficult from this position."