Brundle pans Schumacher – “worst GP ever”
But talking to the Guardian, Fry was quick to jump to the defence of his driver.
"I'm surprised people have reached those conclusions," he said. "He was in a good position until the puncture, but when something like that happens, you get out of sequence. We also put him on the option tyre slightly earlier than we maybe should have done, otherwise he would have been able to defend better than he did. But certainly from inside the team we see things in a totally different perspective.
"We don't really see any significant difference in performance between Nico and Michael – one is getting the breaks and the other isn't at the moment. In sport, what goes around comes around. For those who have a run of luck, that frequently comes to an end, and the opposite happens. So we're very comfortable with Michael's performance, and I can't see any reason why he won't come good. He continues to improve, and he is going make a good job of it."
Fry was also optimistic that the team could offer Schumacher a better car capable of getting him to the front of the field. When asked if the title was out of reach for Schumacher, who is 75 points behind leader Lewis Hamilton, Fry said: "Absolutely not.
"It's all part of the learning process. I think he, and we as a team, will continue to work hard this year and do the best we can. We still want to be in the top three. Red Bull and McLaren are fairly dominant, but Ferrari have had a mixed season. We've struggled to make the so-called f-duct rear wing work, and we don't have the special exhaust system Red Bull have. If we can get both of those things on the car then we'll be in a lot better position, and in the second half of the season we will continue to work hard and improve."
06/15/10 Former driver and BBC television pundit Martin Brundle has criticized ex team-mate Michael Schumacher's on-track conduct in Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix, describing the Mercedes driver's race as his 'worst ever' since entering Formula 1 19 years ago. Having endured a bad qualifying on Saturday to manage only the 13th, Schumacher kept out of trouble in the opening laps at the Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve but later suffered incidents with both Robert Kubica (at Turn 3) and Felipe Massa (at Turn 12), with the latter soon being investigated but cleared by FIA race stewards.
"It was a shocking performance from Michael Schumacher today," Brundle commented on the BBC's post-race F1 Forum. "He lacked judgment today and that's the worst Grand Prix I've ever seen him drive in his career, absolutely.
"Frankly, if he was a new boy, we'd have been saying, 'You know what? He's not ready for Formula 1, he's not good enough for Formula 1'…because it was really clumsy, unacceptable moves – what's the point in risking your car?"
Norfolk man Brundle particularly disparaged the 7-time World Champion's brief battle with Renault's Kubica, which began as the German exited the pit lane on Lap 13. GPUpdate.net