Coulthard: Ferrari dominance mirrors McLaren in ’98

That year, McLaren scored 12 pole positions from 16 races and Mika Hakkinen took eight wins on his way to the World Drivers' title. Coulthard, who finished third that season, believes the Prancing Horse now possesses a similar stranglehold on the category.

"Ferrari are the class of the field," said the Scot. "They're getting what they deserve. They're doing to us what we did to them in 1998."

Only Ferrari's Schumacher himself, along with Damon Hill's one-off win for Jordan at Spa, was able to topple the Silver Arrows from the top step of the podium that year. This season, Schumacher has a 100 percent hit rate of poles and wins from the first two races.

McLaren boss Ron Dennis admits that Ferrari does hold a significant edge, but is adamant that the tide could turn in the Woking team's favour when the European season kicks off at San Marino on April 15.

"They do [have an advantage] at the moment," he said. "But wait until after Brazil. We know what we've got to do. Once we've done it, see how quick the car is then."

"We left Brazil [the second race] last year with nothing," he added. "We're fighters - we know what we've got to do. I think we improved the car for Sepang, and we certainly improved the car from qualifying to the race. Of course, we didn't have either of the Ferraris under pressure, so we don't know what they could have done, but we still did fastest lap, which was a pretty good time in the conditions."