Schumacher: I told you so

The world champion could only qualify his Ferrari third in Monaco, with team-mate Rubens Barrichello fifth, as Michelin-shod Williams and McLaren laid claim to the front row.

In Austria, such was Ferrari's advantage that any concerns about an immediate threat from rival teams sounded like hollow words. In Monaco, however, Schumacher stated: "We have said many times that it will not continue like it has been in previous races. Things will turn around and that has happened and is the situation we have to face.

"We have been a little bit behind all weekend in Monaco. We didn't get through the programme on the first day, when there were a lot of interruptions and then I had an electronic problem on Saturday morning. I aborted my first qualifying run because there was a big oil cloud in the tunnel, then I had one lap in traffic with Juan Pablo, but otherwise I got clean laps."

While some are expecting to see more performance drop-off in race conditions from Bridgestone-shod cars as against those on Michelins, Schumacher is not too despondent: "We are not miles away, in my view, in race conditions and I think we can be reasonably competitive. But if not, we will simply have to drive home and see how many points we can score."