Schumacher Plays Down Renault Challenge

World Champion Michael Schumacher has counted out any chance of Renault forming a Championship challenge and believes the performance of McLaren-Mercedes could ensure a "fight right to the end" this season.

McLaren driver Kimi Raikkonen, who claimed his maiden Grand Prix victory in Malaysia in March, still leads the Championship after scoring points in all but one of the five races this year. Schumacher has won the last two races to soar towards the Championship lead.

"I see the main competitors being McLaren Mercedes on a long-term basis," said the German. "Kimi is leading the World Championship and he is a good driver at the moment. Things are quite close at the moment. It is very open for many drivers and I believe that this season will see a hard fight right to the end."

But he warned that fight will still be probably be no more than a two-horse race - between his Ferrari team and rivals McLaren-Mercedes - after counting out Renault's rise to form. The Anglo-French outfit's young driver Fernando Alonso, who has scored points in every one of the rounds this year, pushed Schumacher close for victory in Barcelona.

But the experienced German champion said: "I do not think that Renault has made this jump, because the running before Barcelona showed the Renault was already good there. I already assume McLaren-Mercedes will be the closest competitor again. I think that they will return, but it will be interesting to see at the next race how Renault does and how BMW Williams develops further."

Schumacher is just four points behind young Finn Raikkonen after his resurgence and expects his new car, which made a victorious debut at the last race in Barcelona, will be even better this time around.

"After all the work last week and the promising results we have seen from it we can travel to Austria with a good feeling," he said. "I hope that we can shorten our Championship deficit further or even turn the situation to our advantage.

"That would be the ideal result for us. We feel already prepared for Austria and each individual race counts. Perhaps it is good that we have already had our weak phase at the beginning of the season."