Albers relishing upgrade from Minardi

Albers made his Formula One racing debut with Minardi in the outfit's last year in Formula One. The Faenza-based company was sold to Red Bull during the winter and renamed Toro Rosso, while Albers signed with Midland to partner Tiago Monteiro in the 2006 season.

And despite Midland running last year at the back of the grid, only faster than Minardi, Albers says the difference between the two teams is major.

"It is a really, really big difference," the Dutchman said today, at MF1's 2006 launch. "It is already different when I take the plane and land at London Heathrow; you just feel immediately that you are in a race country, so in that position you feel immediately that everyone is focused and everyone knows everything about racing.

"I had a really, really good time at Minardi, but I always had to sacrifice. If I wanted to change something, we had to look at the budget and try to figure something out, and we had to compromise.

"Now it is completely different. If we have to have something, then we get it. For me, it is a completely different world, of course."

Albers clarified, however, that he was not faulting Minardi for their hardships. "This is not criticism of Minardi, because Minardi did a really, really good job last year," he added.

"But for this year, I am really motivated, because with Minardi I had a challenge to beat the Jordans. They were 1.5 seconds away from us.

"For me, the first time I drove the old Jordan, the Midland car, it was already a really good car compared to Minardi. I was really satisfied with that, because if you see the figures from that - and the progress we made to the new car - it is really a good step.

"It is always difficult to determine how much progress you made, and the most important thing is how the car is when it goes out on the track and out of the wind tunnel.

"Now the question is what step the other teams have made. Hopefully, it is as small as possible."