Ferrari expects British GP fight

The Ferrari star was forced to switch mid-race to a radical low-fuel four-stop strategy as the Italian team went all out to beat Renault's Fernando Alonso at Magny-Cours. Schumacher will likely find that this tactic is not an option at Silverstone however because of the Northamptonshire venue's longer pitlane. Thus the German could be forced to do his racing on the track rather than in the pits. Either way the increasing strength of the opposition is relished by Schumacher and Ferrari's technical director Ross Brawn.

"That's why we go racing," said Schumacher. "It's not a surprise to us that the opposition is coming closer. And there are circuits where we were expecting certain teams to be strong. I think Silverstone is going to be another tough one for us, from what we have seen in testing."

Brawn's sense of mischief comes to the fore this time of year and admits that winning at his home track, with an Italian team, holds special significance: "For the last few years it's been very pleasurable for me to go to Silverstone and try to beat the English teams on their own ground. It adds a little extra for me.

"Maybe not for the rest of Ferrari but being the Englishman, it's a little bit of extra spice to go back to Silverstone and try and win it."

Brawn is aware that winning is getting tougher with every race and that the list of teams closing in on Ferrari is getting longer. "I think McLaren looked as though they were in better shape [in France]," said Brawn. "They certainly had a much better qualifying. It looks like they need to spend a bit more time with the car to get the consistency for the race.

"Williams were disappointing in the race, I'm not sure what happened. I think they came here with their new package untested and I guess they were treating this race as an extended test session.

"The Renaults certainly gave us a very hard time and it could have gone one way or the other. They were extremely competitive this weekend."