Michael Schumacher says that there is "a question mark" over how competitive Mercedes will be in the European Grand Prix in Valencia but downplayed its chances of victory.
Mercedes was optimistic of a strong showing in Canada two weeks ago, but Nico Rosberg could only finish sixth while Schumacher suffered from another retirement. Having been surprised by the relative lack of competitiveness in Montreal, Schumacher said that he didn't expect to be able to challenge for the win in Valenca.
"In Montreal we indicated it would be one of the good circuits for us and then it turned out not to be that good, so it's a question mark what this track will be," Schumacher said. "This year I don't think it is very straightforward to predict and try and understand what exactly is going well and therefore I'm a little bit reluctant to say we are in a very strong position here. We hope to be in a good position but to call it a victory here - that would be too optimistic from my point of view after what we have seen in Canada."
Schumacher also said that he wasn't too perturbed by the retirements he had been suffering from recently because he doesn't believe Mercedes can challenge for the championship anyway.
"I wasn't from the beginning of the year feeling that we would be in a championship fight. Maybe I'm wrong, because I mean looking at Nico's points and the points I could have accounted it could have been different. But still, it's still a long year to go and by the end - thinking of where we came from last year - it would be probably too optimistic to think you're in a championship situation.
"If you're not in a championship situation you're sort of trying naturally still the best but if you then have retirements and you have moments like I just had to experience I don't actually feel too bad about that. I know it's the nature of Formula One and again I trust my guys 100%, and if something then fails after that then it's fate."
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