Schumacher Claims Rivals are Catching Up

World Champion Michael Schumacher suggested on Saturday that some of Ferrari's early-season dominance had been eroded by rivals Williams and McLaren.

"It's obvious," Schumacher said after being beaten to pole position by Juan Pablo Montoya in the Williams. "We have been up front for quite a while and now it's tailed off. People were reluctant to believe this, that it could happen but that's the way it is.

"There will be other circuits that may favour us but here it's probably favouring them a little bit more than us."

Schumacher has won five of seven races so far this year, and is a massive 33 points ahead of Montoya and Williams teammate Ralf Schumacher in the Championship standings. But the Ferrari driver was beaten to pole position by Montoya in Monaco and now in Canada.

Schumacher also finished second to McLaren's David Coulthard in Monaco, the first time that the Italian team's F2002 car finished lower than first.

The German four-time World Champion was stopped from scoring a record seventh pole position at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit on Saturday, but is still confident of a good result on Sunday.

"It was an exciting session and with second place on the grid, I can be confident for the race," he added. "I am a little bit disappointed not to have been able to fight for pole right at the end. We might have been able to get pole, but if you look at my sector times, we were very close but just didn't get it together.

"On my third run, which was my fastest one, I lost some time in the first sector. I knew where I had lost it and why, so I was optimistic for my last run, but then came the rain. We knew there was a chance of rain but not when it could come exactly."

Schumacher's teammate Rubens Barrichello finished in third place ahead of the second Williams, driven by Ralf Schumacher.