Ralf hopeful Toyota will be at the front

The Japanese squad have been showing improved pace in recent races, culminating in their strongest Grand Prix of the season two weeks ago in France.

Schumacher, who was 13th fastest in today's practice, believes Toyota will be able to keep their momentum in Germany.

"It's always nice to come to Hockenheim because I enjoy the atmosphere and feel at home," said Schumacher. "Today was a pretty successful day of work on tyres and set-up for the weekend. In the few laps that I went out for, everything was looking good.

"We made it through both practice sessions without problems, even though we were working under time pressure due to the rain. We collected all the data we needed, so we will have to see what tyre choice will be made.

"Our progress has been improving and I believe our package still has the potential to compete at the front of the pack on Sunday."

Teammate Jarno Trulli, who today confirmed will stay at Toyota until 2009, also enjoyed a good day, posting the 12th quickest time.

"Today was a relatively good day for me," he said. "Especially now that I have signed my contract with the team, I am very happy that we can look forward and concentrate on developing our progress even further. The practice sessions today went as normal, even though it threatened to rain during the second session.

"We have already worked on the tyres for this race at the last test to get a feeling how they would perform at this track. But we should encounter warmer temperatures tomorrow and this will give us a better insight as to how well we can perform here over the weekend."