Ralf: Renault have the Best Car

Ralf Schumacher claimed on Thursday that Renault have produced the best car on this year's Formula One grid and said the French manufacturer will push World Champions Ferrari hard this season.

Williams-BMW driver Schumacher has had a difficult opening to the season as his elder brother Michael has won the first two races in Australia and Malaysia for Ferrari.

Renault have shown Ralf enough in the two Grands Prix to suggest they are a force to be reckoned with after Fernando Alonso claimed third in Australia and then ended seventh from the back of the grid in Malaysia.

"It is not fair to say that Ferrari, as a team, are so far ahead," said Ralf. "I think at the moment the best car in the pitlane is the Renault. In Melbourne they were ahead of us by 25 seconds or so and for us it's pretty frustrating to be where we are. We were expecting to be up for the Championship from the first race on."

Williams' radically-designed car struggled for pace in the opening event, but Juan Pablo Montoya did finish second to Michael Schumacher in Malaysia. Ralf said there are no major problems with the car.

"It won't take us five races (to come back) because this year I think we know the car pretty well so all the performance we need is basically aerodynamic," he said. "Last year we had other problems and we changed quite a lot in the season.

"We were hoping to be a lot further up the front and it is not really satisfactory for the first two races. But I think from here we have some parts on the car that will help us.

"It is a bit surprising that we have not been able to get it together, especially after last year, when it looked like we had found our way through it and seemed to be very close to Ferrari, if not better sometimes.

"We are only short of three or four tenths of a second or something. The whole package has to improve a bit - tyres, car, engine - and when it does I don't see a problem."