Ross Brawn has played down comments made by Michael Schumacher following a disappointing Turkish GP, claiming the German was misinterpreted.

The Istanbul race began with a needless clash with Vitaly Petrov, necessitating a pit stop which effectively ended the Mercedes driver's race. From then on, the seven-time champion fought a series of duels with midfield drivers eventually finishing a distant twelfth.

Speaking in the moments after the race, the German said he felt no "big joy", leading to claims that he is on the verge of calling it quits. Indeed, former teammate Johnny Herbert suggested the Mercedes driver should cut his losses.

Speaking to Reuters however, Brawn, who worked with Schumacher as he won all seven titles, dismissed the speculation. "I'm sure the last race wasn't very joyful, but I think that was what it was referring to," he said. "When you have a race like that, any driver, it's going to knock you back a bit. But I think he's pretty resilient and I'm optimistic this weekend he'll be back where we want him.

"I spoke to him since then," he continued, "we've had a lot of technical discussions, he's hassling about what we are doing about the car, what's coming along, what improvements we've got so nothing's changed really.

"It's just looking at things that go wrong," the Englishman added. "They are quite small and I know they are all significant but in Turkey up until final qualifying he looked incredibly strong. Then in final qualifying we had some problems. It's just that last little bit we've got to finish off. If he was slow from the beginning, then you'd be worried but I'm not worried because he is still very quick."