Schumacher Expects Further Trouble

The World Champion, fresh from his poor seventh placed run in the Malaysian Grand Prix, is gearing himself up for a crunch test in Ferrari's F2005 at Mugello in Italy on Wednesday, well aware that the Italian team's fightback may have to wait until they are back on home turf in Imola.

Keeping a brave face on the team's current plight, and knowing only too well about how quickly form can change in F1, Schumacher is adamant that Ferrari can recover their lost form eventually - even if he believes there are no short-term answers.

"Didn't I repeatedly say last year that situations can change at the drop of a hat," he said on Monday.  "Well, that's happened now, but things can change in our favour again.

"The good thing is that we know that our team is competent and strong enough to know what's needed to achieve just that. We have to put in some hard work now and we know where we have to start. I'm not expecting major progress for the next race in Bahrain. But I'm sure that we will be doing quite good at Imola."

Ferrari will make a decision about whether they will introduce their new car in Bahrain after this week's test at Mugello - and Schumacher is not heading into his first try-out of the F2005 without any raised hopes about what to expect.

"I've gotten a lot of information about the new car from our test driver Luca Badoer, but I'm really looking forward to finally trying it out myself now," said Schumacher. "The first time driving is always really exciting."

Speaking about his title hopes, he added: "I've experienced many times that I seemed to have no chance at all during one race, and was right up there fighting for the win in the next one. The whole team is stable enough to know that we have to look at the season as a whole.

"This season is longer than ever before, so a lot can still happen. We are going to test our new car now, and we'll take the next step after that."