Schumacher to Settle for Less Dominant 2003

World Champion Michael Schumacher says he will settle for a less dominant season in 2003 after crushing the opposition with his Ferrari this year.

Fans turned off in their droves this season as Schumacher won 11 of the 17 races and smashed every record in the book on his way to his third consecutive world crown for Ferrari. The reaction to his dominance has been blamed - along with a world recession - for the financial perils the sport is currently in, but he insists that he and the team will not be as far ahead next year.

"The aim isn't necessary to be as dominant as we turned out to be this year," said Schumacher. "As long as we can keep on winning races, everything's okay - and I don't believe it will be boring."

Ferrari's closest rivals last season, Williams-BMW, are working hard to develop their current machine but have already admitted they will have a tough time catching up with the ultra-fast Ferrari cars next year.

McLaren, who are the other team tipped to fight Ferrari for the crown, are not introducing their new car until the fourth race of the year because they need to make significant developments to catch up.

That is a tactic that Ferrari used last season, when they introduced their all-conquering F2002 machine at the third race of the year in Brazil. But Schumacher is not expecting that to happen this time.

The German said the development of next year's offering from the Italian stable is "a bit further on" than it was last season.

"Last season, we have become safer and more stable," Schumacher explained. "But you always have to look at this in relation to the other teams: what we've learned, they will learn too. It would be rather stupid if we were to be tempted to rest on our laurels because experience has shown that things always fall off after peak periods - and that will happen again.

"We managed to catch up in the past so that means the others could catch up with us now. We have to keep going to make sure that no-one else finds something which too much self-confidence stopped us from finding.

"We hope that we can put this off for as long as possible - and I naturally also hope that it won't happen in my time. So our aim is quite clear: to keep this Ferrari era going for as long as possible."