Ralf: Australia to put Toyota to the test

"Heating up the tyres has been a problem for us, so Australia will show us how far we've come," said the German driver in a preview for Sunday's third round of the championship in Melbourne.

"A difficult weekend awaits but I hope we can continue to push hard and use the data that we have collected so far this year to help pushing up the grid."

Both Schumacher, who scored Toyota's first point of the season with eighth place in Malaysia eight days ago, and Italian teammate Jarno Trulli returned to Europe last week to try and improve the car in testing.

"The cool weather could be difficult for us but we will use the weekend to understand more about how to make improvements to how our car works with our tyres," said Trulli.

Technical director Mike Gascoyne was confident progress had been made since the first two races in Bahrain and Malaysia.

"Obviously we will have cooler conditions in Australia so we have to keep a very close eye on getting the tyre to work," he said. "I am sure we now have a better idea of how to do that so I hope we will be able to cope with that particular situation."

Toyota, fourth in the championship in 2005, switched from Michelin tyres to Bridgestone at the end of last year.