Alonso Now a Rival, Says Schumacher

World Champion Michael Schumacher believes Fernando Alonso is now one of his main rivals, saying the young Spaniard and his Renault team are going to be in the fight for the 2004 World Championship.

"I realize that we are going to have a good fight for the Championship this year," Schumacher told Gazzetta della Sport after testing at Valencia, Spain, alongside eight of the other teams. "But while a few weeks ago I mentioned McLaren as our biggest rival, now I can say that Williams and Renault will also get in the fight.

"And to the list of my usual rivals - my brother Ralf, [Juan Pablo] Montoya, and [Kimi] Raikkonen - I can also add [Fernando] Alonso. After a year of learning the ropes, he is now ready to compete at the highest level."

Schumacher, who won a record sixth World Championship last season, was testing the old Ferrari F2003-GA at Valencia, setting the third fastest time of the week, behind Williams's Antonio Pizzonia and Juan Pablo Montoya. All three had broken the track record in two consecutive days.

"I'm satisfied with the job done these last few days," Schumacher commented after testing. "With all the effort put in the last two weeks, it was important to find improvements, and we have. We've made a step forward with the tyres, which are now better.

"If the new car was completely different from the old one, then we would have problems [in adapting the developed tyres to the new car]. But the design philosophy of the F2004 is the same, so we are convinced that, when we'll test the tyres on the new car, we won't have different results."

Schumacher, who will be testing the F2004 for the first time today at Fiorano, added that he was "very excited about driving the new car" and stating that "just the idea of it gives me pure joy."