Schu: Rossi did well

Rossi's test was meant to be top secret, and the recent winner of the South African bike Grand Prix in his first race for Yamaha actually drove wearing one of Schumacher's spare crash helmets. Although no times were issued, Rossi is believed to have lapped the Ferrari test track in an F2004 car in 59.1s as against Schumacher's track record of 55.9s.

Asked whether he thought Rossi could be a competitive F1 driver, Schumacher said: "It's not easy to answer. He has great abilities on his bike and has shown it to some degree yesterday in the car. But he knows what it takes to do it in motorcycling and I don't know how much experience you need in the lower classes [before racing in F1].

"He could probably get to a competitive level but finding the final bit is what's difficult. But yesterday he was just enjoying himself and had a big grin on his face. He did very well and it's natural to take some time to get into it. I heard he had some karting experience and once you have racing in the blood, you know what to do."

Schumacher added that he had no desire to go the opposite way and race a Moto GP bike.

"I do actually quite regularly jump on a bike, but more the Harley-Davidson type," he said. "There is no ambition to jump on any racing bike. A bike to a car is quite safe, I'd say, but a car to bike, not so. I would be curious to experience the acceleration of such a bike though."

John Surtees, who successfully made the transition from bikes to cars, winning world championships with both, has said that if the 24-year-old Rossi is serious about switching, he needs to do it sooner rather than later.