Schumacher Remains Confident Despite Poor Start

World Champion Michael Schumacher is still confident of enjoying a competitive German Grand Prix despite a poor showing in first qualifying.

Schumacher, leading the Championship by seven points over McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen, finished in a disappointing ninth position, far from the pace set by his brother Ralf Schumacher in the Williams. Juan Pablo Montoya was second, while Raikkonen finished in fifth spot.

Despite being more than a second off the pace on a sweltering day, the Championship leaders put a brave face on the situation before Saturday's decisive session.

"This was not the best qualifying lap of my career, but it wasn't bad," said the German. "The track was quite slippery because of the other cars which ran on the track in between our two sessions, resulting in the marshals having to clean the track, so perhaps being first on the road this afternoon was a further slight disadvantage.

"Our competitors seem to have a very strong package over one lap. But we can be confident for the race, because in this morning's free practice session, we saw that our tyres performed very consistently in race trim with a heavy fuel load."

Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, winner of the last British Grand Prix two weeks ago for Ferrari, was again ahead of Schumacher in eighth place.

"This morning I had a few problems finding the best set-up on the car," said the Brazilian. "The situation improved for qualifying, but not sufficiently for us to be fighting for the top spots. On my timed lap, I made a small mistake in the third sector.

"Judging by what we have seen today, we do not seem to have the advantage here which we enjoyed at Silverstone, but this does not mean we won't be in the running right to the end. Now, we have to work to try and extract all the potential which the car has at its disposal."