Frustrated Ferrari Blame Qualifying Pace

Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello once again showed flashes of speed during the race at Monaco, but their failure to qualifying near the front proved costly as they extended Ferrari's longest losing streak since 1996.

"This weekend ended much as we expected," said Todt. "Although we had a car-tyre package that was very quick in the race, the characteristics of this circuit meant that neither of our drivers was able to overtake slower cars which would have allowed them to exploit the potential of the car.

"The outcome of the race shows once again we have to work very hard on improving the performance of our package in qualifying. Our rivals have built the basis of their success on the one flying lap which leaves us to fight an uphill battle in the race."

Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn echoed Todt's belief that the F2005 has plenty of potential in race trim but is being hindered by its poor performance in qualifying.

"It was a bit of a frustrating afternoon, because you could see in the middle of the race that our car had huge potential," he explained. "Michael set the fastest lap when he still had a lot of fuel in the car. But this was typical of the type of race you can expect to have at this circuit if you do not qualify well.

"Basically, we had to follow other cars and were not able to use our pace. The tyres were perfect for the race, but we were not able to qualify well and here we paid very heavily for that."