Schumacher insists he will not leave

"You cannot get rid of me, let's put it this way," Schumacher told reporters in Singapore about the speculation suggesting the seven-time champion may retire from Formula 1 again before his contract with Mercedes expires.

The German has endured a difficult comeback to the sport this season, being overshadowed by Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.

Schumacher has at least a year of his contract left to run.

The 91-time grand prix winner insisted he is still determined to win the title again.

"Our goal is naturally to win the championship, better earlier than later," he added. "But it is a process and we are not magic, so we trying to maximise our opportunity in deciding early to prepare for 2011.

"The process has started naturally whereas the teams that are contending for the championship have to keep doing a programme, we hope that will give us a slight advantage for restarting in 2011."

Schumacher said that returning to winning ways is a "process" that requires time.

"Naturally if we knew exactly all the situation we would simply stop and change it. It is a process. And if you think in my first activity with Benetton it took me about four years to build up and finally win a championship, in Ferrari it took me five years and I hope we are much more efficient here.

"It is a process of getting things together with the engineer, working very closely and setting up as much as possible to our needs. We are more limited, we have tyres that are given and a car that has a certain characteristic and certainly in a way I do feel that the harmony between these two components and myself is not yet given. We are working to make it in harmony."

He added: "It is a process of still growing together, setting up and creating the structure to be ready for next year. Not only in the factory in developing of the car but from the team side, increasing the number of ideas and whenever you go out, even with a car that hasn't developed, you still learn.

"It is a bit more tough because you are competing for not winning races but as we see in Monza, we did quite a reasonable job from my point of view and I guess we can have a few more reasonable results this year."