Ralf admits 'We are struggling'

Juan Pablo Montoya and team-mate Ralf Schumacher line up eighth and ninth on the grid for Sunday's race having failed to match the pace of the frontrunners on the German track despite a promising pre-qualifying session particularly from Schumacher Jr.

"Ninth place is not where I expected to be, really. It was quite difficult to get the balance right for qualifying and I decided to go for something different, but it didn't work out particularly well," said Ralf. "We tried our best but it's clear that we are struggling at the moment, since our car hasn't developed enough. At present we lack performance but I am sure we will definitely come back soon."

Montoya agreed that the team is struggling to find any speed from the FW26 while around them other outfits are making significant steps forward.

"I was one of the first cars out in the pre-qualifying session and that held us up a bit, but it looks like we are just not quick enough at the moment," said the Colombian. "I have been struggling a bit with the balance so far this weekend and it looked like in qualifying I had got it right, finally, but still, we lack of speed. Several teams seem to have improved their car quite a lot and we haven't improved enough. We'll see how the race goes, let's hope to get some good points out of here."

A bemused, Sam Michael - the team's newly appointed technical director - could shed no light on the team's lack of pace. "It obviously was a disappointing qualifying session," he said. "We have had no real mechanical problems with either car and were hoping for a better result. We now will work hard tonight to see what we can do on our strategy to get some points tomorrow."