Schumacher Surprised by Ferrari Advantage

World Champion Michael Schumacher revealed he was surprised by the gap to his rivals after topping the timesheets on the first day of practice at the Australian Grand Prix.

The German, who has won the season-opening Australian Grand Prix for the last two years, fired up his campaign for a record-equalling fifth world title with a strong statement of intent in the same Ferrari model he used last season.

His fastest lap of 1:27.276 was 0.523 quicker than his second-placed Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello and less than half a second outside the time he set to seize pole position last year.

"We are quite pleased with today's performance and we feel more confident than before arriving here," said the German. "But I am not over confident because a lot can change between today and Saturday.

"Actually, I am a little bit surprised about the gap to the other teams, but as usual on Friday you can never be sure about what fuel loads teams are running. Anyway, the Bridgestone tyres were working very well which contributed to our performance. But I will now study the data more fully to get a more complete picture."

Brazilian Barrichello was also in a confident mood after being one second quicker than the closest of their rivals, Ralf Schumacher in the Williams.

"A good day and I am relaxed about things," he said. "We were able to test out the balance of the car on the wet and then on the dry. We are quite confident. I think that the times will be much closer tomorrow, as today we did not get a clear picture of what the other teams can do. We did a very good job and now we can concentrate on tomorrow."