Schumacher Wants Winning Retirement for F2002

World Champion Michael Schumacher says he wants to send his World Championship-winning Ferrari F2002 into retirement this weekend with victory at the San Marino Grand Prix.

Schumacher had expected to be driving the new F2003-GA car in front of Ferrari's home fans at Imola but will now race the old machine again after unexpected problems were experienced in testing last week.

But the German champion, who failed to finish the last race in Brazil and is yet to climb onto the podium this season, believes the move will give him the chance to give the car a winning finish.

"Perhaps I can send the World Champion car into retirement with victory," said Schumacher. "That would be fantastic. So many things have ran against us in such a short time - perhaps the time of misfortunes is now passed."

Schumacher tested the old F2002 car on Friday while teammate Rubens Barrichello ran the F2003-GA and hit trouble just three laps into a planned race distance run. The team believe their performance in the opening races of the year, which have seen them claim just 16 points, still shows the old car is as fast as their rivals' and Schumacher backed them for putting reliability above pace.

"Naturally, as a driver, you always want to drive the faster car," he said. "But at the moment that is secondary because the new points system is more concerned with reliability. With our World Champion car we have enjoyed great reliability and in the first three races of the season we also saw that it is still fast enough. I back this decision fully."