Everything still possible for Schumacher

As one would expect from a seven-time champion, Michael Schumacher is not about to give up on his title hopes this year and will continue to keep up the fight. In Canada it looked like Kimi Raikkonen was the one who would take on Renault's championship leader Fernando Alonso but two overly-long pit stops dropped the McLaren man behind his rival.

Michael Schumacher.

Photo by Eric Gilbert.

Then on the penultimate lap, with Schumacher closing in, Raikkonen made a mistake and went wide and the Ferrari whipped past to snatch second place. Schumacher knows he was fortunate but is also confident that Ferrari is gaining ground.

"In the end I was lucky to finish second," the German conceded. "The safety car coming on was a help. On the other hand though, our performances improved as the weekend went on."

The gap between Alonso and Schumacher in the drivers' standings is now 25 points; the reigning champion is inching ahead a little more with each race. But Schumacher is not disheartened and with nine rounds still to go this season there's every chance that the situation might change. "We managed to limit the damage to the minimum," he remarked.

"I lost only two points to Fernando and so, overall, we can be content. Beginning the second half of the season 25 points down is not ideal but, then again, neither is it a hopeless situation. In any case, we will not give up. Our strategy for the upcoming races has to be to attack and this is what we will do. Everything is possible."

Schumacher pointed out how much Ferrari has improved since 2005. "People have forgotten the level we were at last year," he said. "We were quite far back. The fact that this has been forgotten so quickly should be taken as a compliment on our part."

"I can only repeat that this is the fruit of all the hard work the team has put in. The guys have been fantastic and have not let last year's difficulties get them down. Instead, they are even more motivated than ever."

"And now we are again going for the title; this is why I am happy! What could be better? Okay, we could be winning more races than we have until now and this is exactly what we will be trying to do. I want to race even better between now and the end of the season."

That one Ferrari victory last season was, of course, was at the controversial US Grand Prix, where F1 is heading this coming weekend. As usual, Schumacher did not want to predict how the team may fare. "We will have to wait and see what happens in Indianapolis," he commented.

"There are too many factors that could influence the result and which cannot be predicted beforehand. Montreal was a case where things did not turn out as expected and so all that I can promise is that we will do our best and not give up the fight."