Schumacher Warns of Tough Season Ahead

World Champion Michael Schumacher was quick to play down his chances for this season's World Championship race on Saturday after taking a dominant pole position for Sunday's Australian Grand Prix.

Schumacher, using Bridgestone tyres on his Ferrari, finished half a second faster than his closest non-Ferrari rival, Juan Pablo Montoya, blowing away the Michelin-favouring pre-season form book.

The German driver was delighted with his performance but he was wary of prematurely heightening expectations and warned that the next race, in Malaysia, could be a different story altogether.

"Yeah, it has gone quite well for us and honestly we are not too surprised about it," said Schumacher. "Simply for the fact that Australia has always been very good for us. If you take last year we were very strong last year, I don't know by how much we sort of led the time trial last year, and then we came to Malaysia and the thing looked completely reversed.

"So I'm obviously concerned on that and simply warn that things look very good here but they might not elsewhere. I don't want to get too ambitious because I know it's going to be a tough season and other races may now suit us so well."

Even so, Schumacher was proud of his team's performance after some critics claimed that, after coming under pressure last season, they would struggle to fight for their title this season.

"You all know what has been written over the winter time,” said Schumacher. "To come here and sort of prove (the) fantastic job our engineers and everybody in the factory has done it's a great satisfaction."