Ferrari Still Focused on 2005

"It's not true that Ferrari nowadays are working only with 2006 in mind, but undoubtedly everything we're learning now - the errors too - will be useful for next year," Todt told Gazzetta dello Sport.

The World Champions continued to struggle at the German Grand Prix last weekend, with Michael Schumacher coming home in a distant fifth place while teammate Rubens Barrichello finished down in 10th, over a lap behind race winner Fernando Alonso.

Schumacher was critical of his Bridgestone tyres after struggling to keep his pace and his rivals behind in the latter part of the race.

Todt said the team knew the tyres would not last the race, but claimed putting the blame solely on the rubber is the wrong thing to do.

"If we had a car one second a lap faster than the others then we wouldn't be talking about tyres," said Todt.

"The choice of soft tyres for Michael was disadvantageous on paper because we knew they wouldn't last to the end, but we hoped that after a first race stint with a good rhythm - let alone Alonso's and Raikkonen's unreachable rhythm -  Schumacher would have been able to hold on to the podium."

Ferrari will embark in another intensive testing programme at the Fiorano circuit this week, ahead of next Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix, but Todt is already playing down the team's chances of being competitive in the remaining part of the year.

"At the moment I feel embarrassed at suggesting what even our minimum objectives could be, and I can't say when we'll start winning again," he said. "You can understand how painful it is for me to speak this way, but unfortunately this is the truth.

"By now we've seen that we aren't able to control all the parameters coming out from testing, qualifying and the races, in order to combine them into a single direction."