Schumacher not expecting an easy time

The reigning World Champion comes to Silverstone with a 31 point lead, but is aware that victory on Sunday is unlikely to be a formality. McLaren topped the testing times at Silverstone last month, and should have a head start when free practice begins on Friday.

"From what we have seen in the test [at Silverstone], both of them can be dangerous," said Schumacher. "I don't think my rivals are weak."

Although McLaren trails Ferrari by 52 points in the Constuctors' Championship, Schumacher says the Woking team is as dangerous as ever.

"I have never rated McLaren to be off the pace, to be honest, and I won't do it now," he said. "When you analyse their performance more deeply, you see they are still very strong - except for qualifying, maybe. So I still see them to have a chance, especially if it all comes together against us. So we will take care to try and not let that happen."

The German has also cited Williams as a big threat, but refutes claims that the BMW powerplant in the back of the Williams chassis is the sole reason for its increased competitiveness this season.

"I don't think that it's all about engine power - look at other circuits like Monte Carlo where they have been strong as well," he said. "It depends simply on the characteristics of the circuit. I would say the differences between the engine power [outputs] are very small. For sure, we don't have to hide ourselves in this respect.

"If you look at the wing settings, you will see that Williams is able to run with much less wing. That's maybe because of the tyres which allow that in certain situations on certain circuits. Then the difference in top speed looks much higher than it would be normally. But, again, I don't think we have to worry too much on circuits like Hockenheim or Monza," he added.

Schumacher says extensive Ferrari test sessions last week will help hone its electronic systems in time for this weekend's race.

"It was quite good, we could adapt a lot," he said. "You have a lot of electronic possibilities now, and there were things which have not been 100 percent yet. This week we have used to fix and refine these systems, so we have been preparing for Silverstone at Mugello."