Schumacher confident for Imola

Michael Schumacher is as confident as ever despite Ferrari's poor start to the season and expects to be competitive at the San Marino Grand Prix. Surprisingly, the reigning champion has only scored two points so far in 2005 and Ferrari has not been as competitive as predicted. But the team will surely bounce back from its problems and Schumacher is expecting that to happen quite soon.

Michael Schumacher.

Photo by xpb.cc.

The German retired from the Bahrain GP with a hydraulic failure but was happy with the performance of the F2005 until then. "I had no trouble keeping up in front and could have driven even faster, but I wanted to go easy on my tyres so early on in the race. So, I'm saying once again: the last race has made me even more confident," Schumacher told his website.

Fernando Alonso, Renault's current leader in the drivers' standings, is 24 points ahead of Schumacher, who lies 13th. Renault looked very strong in the early races and some have already labelled Alonso as likely to be this year's champion but there's still a long way to go yet.

Schumacher is sure the points deficit can be made up and he can still fight for the title. Renault may well be ahead at the moment but as Michael pointed out, it's highly unlikely any one driver could win every race. Some thought maybe Schumacher himself could achieve that last year but he thinks it can't be done.

"I don't think that the missing points are impossible to catch up," he said. "It would be quite presumptuous to think that a single driver can win each and every race. I thought that to be impossible when it looked like I could do it last year and I think it will be impossible for someone else to do this year."

"The competitors won't let that happen. And neither will we. We will continue to stay focussed and work carefully to eliminate our weaknesses. And then I don't see any reason at all for us not to be highly competitive once again at the next race in Imola."

Ferrari was on track at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya last week for testing, although Schumacher's running was hampered by bad weather on Friday. Next week he will be at work at Mugello from Tuesday, along with team tester Luca Baoder, while Rubens Barrichello will be at Fiorano. Schumacher will switch to Fiorano later in the week.