Schumacher: Tyre issues still there

The German squad has struggled to make its tyres work properly in qualifying, something that has compromised its race chances.

Mercedes scored just one point in the previous race in Valencia after failing to get a car into the top ten in qualifying.

Speaking ahead of the British Grand Prix, Schumacher admitted the team will need to focus deeply in trying to solve the issues.

"Silverstone represents a special race for us as it is so close to everyone at our factories in Brackley and Brixworth who are all working like hell to make up the quite difficult start into the season that we have experienced," said Schumacher.

"We would like to give them and all of our supporters a good performance this coming weekend, even if we seem to struggle a bit at the moment. We have to face the fact that we were less competitive in Valencia than we had hoped for which makes it difficult to predict how we can perform at the British Grand Prix.

"Our race pace has been quite promising but our qualifying speed is not yet ideal and we still do not understand the full picture about the tyres. This clearly is something that we will keep working on intensively."

Team-mate Nico Rosberg said he is confident the team will eventually manage to solve its problems and fight closer to the front.

"We will be going back to Brackley after the race to see everyone and it would be nice to get a good result to reward their hard work," he said.

"It's been tough for us over the last few races but we are working hard to improve and I am confident we will get there."