Michael Schumacher offered his sympathy to all at Mercedes after an Australian Grand Prix weekend to forget.

Schumacher was already smarting in the wake of Saturday's wretched qualifying performance, with the race itself doing nothing to ease his mood.

Starting from 11th on the grid, Schumacher was tagged from behind through the initial sequence of corners, puncturing his right-rear tyre and forcing him into a pit stop at the end of lap one.

Running at the back of the field, the seven-times world champion was eventually forced to retire on lap 19 as the earlier collision had damaged the floor of his car.

"The start of the season certainly has not worked out as we had hoped, and we will tick this race off now and concentrate on the next one in Malaysia,"u00a0 said Schumacher.

"But I am very sorry for our guys here and at the factory who have worked so hard and so well over the winter, but for some reason we could not bring their work into results this weekend."

In an attempt to be positive, Schumacher shows confidence the team will come back strong from this upset.
"I still believe we have potential, as we saw during winter testing, and I am convinced we will fight back," he said.