Schuey: Championship is far from over

"It's pretty easy not to get too excited," said Schumacher in Barcelona today (Thursday). "In Australia I was so far ahead but the situation turned round pretty quickly in Malaysia! I can also remember 1994 when we were miles ahead and then the championship got tight. I have been in motor racing a long time and I have seen this often enough.

"I've seen it from the other side too, when we've been chasing other teams and we've made a fight of it when it didn't look like we'd be able to. I know enough that I never feel comfortable and I can only stop fighting when the job is done. Things evolve constantly throughout the season."

Schumacher, however, is confident of a strong prace in Barcelona this weekend, despite recent seasons when Ferrari's performance relative to its main rivals, usually McLaren, has not looked so strong in Spain.

"Even though the British teams test more at Barcelona we have had several good tests here and the new car has a good base. You just have to finalise the set-up, which we did at the last test with two new cars. In last year's race, with the exception of the last stint, I had a pretty good battle with Mika Hakkinen and Ferrari has gone up step-by-step since then."

Schumacher inherited victory in last year's Spanish GP after Hakkinen retired on the final lap. He also took back-to-back wins in the race in 1995-96.