Michael Schumacher blamed a late puncture for his failure to finish in the points in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday.
The Mercedes driver was running in eighth position with 14 laps to go when he was forced to make an unscheduled pitstop after picking up the puncture. That meant the seven-time champion dropped to 11th and out of the points. Schumacher has not scored a point since the Italian GP six races ago.
"Unfortunately, we have to say that again we suffered bad luck today," said Schumacher. "Due to the puncture I had to do another pit stop very late in the race which lost me a points scoring position.
"Of course this is part of the game and you cannot do anything about it but it was a real pity as we had reasonable pace and could have taken some points. Toward the end of the race I was hoping to close the gap to the top 10, and we were making good progress, but it just didn't work out."
Teammate Nico Rosberg retired from the race after a collision with Narain Karthikeyan, meaning Mercedes has not been in the points for four consecutive grands prix.