Disappointed Ralf Relying on Race Strategy

German Ralf Schumacher is hoping his race strategy will allow him to recover from a disappointing final qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.

"There is no doubt that we cannot be satisfied with our qualifying result as our pace is too far away from the top teams," said Schumacher after posting the seventh quickest time of the day. "However I believe that we can do well tomorrow with our race strategy.

"Realistically, we had higher expectations of our performance on this circuit after our most recent test. It is now a matter of hoping that we have the right balance for the race to enable us to score a useful amount of points."

The session was not positive either for Schumacher's teammate Juan Pablo Montoya, who finished down in ninth position. The Colombian was forced to switch to the spare car for qualifying after his racing machine suffered a fuel pump problem in the warm-up.

"It's been a difficult weekend but I think finally we have sorted my car, which is still not very good but at least its handling has improved and it is now driveable," the Colombian said.

"We are starting tomorrow from fairly poor grid positions but this is what we've got at the moment and we have to deal with it and make the most of our race."