Broken agreement still angers Schu

Schumacher even attempted a last-minute plea on the starting grid with his fellow drivers but couldn't persuade one, Jacques Villeneuve, to agree to take a vow not to pass anyone. He was also furious that some team owners, including Benetton-Renault's Flavio Briatore, instructed their drivers to ignore the attempted pact.

"I still think it was absolutely wrong of some team owners to take unfair advantage of the dependency of their drivers and to force them to act against their clear will," said Schumacher. "I still don't understand that. We didn't want something more to happen on such a dreadful weekend, bearing in mind how tragically the race one year ago had ended."

The German has also revealed his true feelings about racing at Monza, where he finished a subdued fourth.

"The weekend in Monza was very difficult for me," he said. "Because of the terrible events in the US I arrived there with subdued emotions, and at the first press conference on Thursday all these feelings became even stronger. I couldn't get rid of the pictures. I then talked to Jean Todt for quite a while, and he gave me full scope to decide whether to drive or not. But, as it was our home Grand Prix, I felt a need to drive.

"But then, in the course of the weekend, a lot of things happened which more and more increased my bad feelings. Beginning with Jos Verstappen going off heavily, then Nick Heidfeld and Kimi Raikkonen crashing on the Friday, and Mika's crash on Saturday. All this added to the tense atmosphere which had already been tight because of the situation in the USA."

Schumacher added that Alex Zanardi's horror crash during the Eurospeedway Lausitz CART race had prompted him to begin the campaign to ensure a safe opening lap at Monza.

"After Zanardi's horrible accident on the Saturday afternoon, we then started our initiative on Sunday morning," he added. "Some drivers came to me sharing the same weird feeling about the events in the US and of this weekend, and we discussed what we could do to face the situation in an appropriate and respectful way."