Todt grudgingly accepts points system

Despite Schumacher taking wins at the San Marino and European Grands Prix, Alonso's second places were enough to limit the Spaniard's points loss to just four - leaving him 13 clear ahead of this weekend's race at Barcelona.

Under the previous points system, which gave 10 points to the winner and six to the runner-up, Schumacher would have had seven points after the Australian Grand Prix to Alonso's 26. After the German's double win, the gap would have been down to 11 points - Schumacher on 27 points and Alonso on 38.

Todt said that the two points difference between winning and second place that was introduced at the end of 2002 was not ideal for his team - but at least proved that the FIA did not just make rule changes to favour Ferrari.

"This system is part of the things demanded back when Ferrari had absolute dominance, so that we wouldn't have a world champion already by half season, for example at Magny Cours," Todt told Gazzetta dello Sport, referring to Schumacher's early success in 2002.

"We sportingly accepted it. Some people say the FIA takes decisions by following our will, but it looks like they also did things that do not favour us.

"At the time, the objective was to keep the season open for as long as possible. In any case, these are the rules and we must accept them. There are still many races and there is the possibility to recover. Besides, Kimi Raikkonen had a great race, so it's not just us and Renault."

Todt believes that Ferrari's recovery this season was important - both for hitting back at the team's critics and perhaps in persuading Schumacher that he should continue in F1.

"The only way we could reply to the criticisms we were facing from all sides was with facts," he explained.

"However, we knew since the start of the season that the 248 F1 was a good car, and it was quite mortifying not being able to demonstrate it with results. It could not turn out to be another 2005, and now we are convincing just about everyone."

Speaking about Schumacher's future decision, Todt said: "I don't yet know what Michael intends to do, but days like Nurburgring are important to demonstrate that Schumacher is always a great champion, so that he realizes himself that he's still very strong, that what he's done was well deserved and he can still do much."