Germany blame gearbox problems

Christian Vietoris slumped from second on the grid to ninth by the end of the 45-lap race, and he finished nearly 50 seconds adrift of race winner Oliver Jarvis.

The problems in the feature race compounded a difficult weekend for the team, who are already 21 points behind championship leaders South Africa after the first round in the Netherlands.

"This was not the weekend we expected," said Vietoris, who has replaced Nico Hulkenberg as the team's lead driver for this season. "The feature race was the biggest disappointment of the weekend.

"After a good start, I realised on the straights that something was wrong and we didn't reach top speed as I wasn't able to use the six gears properly.

"We later found out that this had cost me roughly 2.5 seconds per lap. We have to make sure this doesn't happen again next time."

Vietoris believes that the team's qualifying performance shows that they will be contenders again this season, and team boss Willi Weber also remains optimistic.

"Obviously, expectations were high as we are last year's title winners," said Weber. "I would have loved to see Christian fighting for the top, and it's disappointing that we haven't been able to make the most of our starting positions.

"But we've seen in qualifying that the speed is there, and I'm sure the experienced team will find out soon what exactly has caused our problems. We want to be back at the top in two weeks' time at Brno."