Ralf Worried by Ferrari's Race Pace

German Ralf Schumacher admitted he is worried about Ferrari's pace following a dominant performance by the World Champions at the Australian Grand Prix.

World Champion Michael Schumacher led a Ferrari parade in the park to score the first win of the season. With Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello following Schumacher around the Albert Park circuit, the flaming red cars crossed the line in isolated splendour to celebrate a first one-two finish since Japan 2002.

Schumacher's younger brother Ralf was fourth for Williams, ahead of Colombian teammate Juan Pablo Montoya. Both men were more than a minute behind the race winner.

"Of course I cannot be happy with today's result, even if, after all, I have made up four places from my starting position and I have collected some points for the team," said Ralf. "We were on a good strategy and the team did an excellent job in the pits.

"Worrying is the fact is that at this race, we are missing one second from Ferrari, which I didn't expect and I believe this is down mainly to the design of their car as well as to some tyre graining for us, which we have to overcome.

"The whole of our package needs to improve slightly and this is going to take maybe a couple of races, but I am confident we can make it."

Montoya was pushed back from third on the grid to seventh after going off the track at the start. That triggered an aggressive fightback from the Colombian, who only managed to climb back to fifth place.

"I didn't take advantage at all of my third place on the grid, since right after the start I was trying to defend my position from Alonso and I went off track, losing four places," said Montoya.

"After that, I spent my race trying to find the right moment to overtake the cars in front of me but that was no easy job, since the balance of my car wasn't ideal and on top of that I had quite a lot of tyre graining.

"I also experienced a problem with my right rear wheel during my third pitstop which lost me some more time."