Schumacher pleased with Ferrari progress

Leaving all the controversy aside, the North American rounds of the championship bought more points for Ferrari and Michael Schumacher is pleased with the progress being made. He and teammate Rubens Barrichello scored a one-two for the Scuderia at the Indianapolis event, which moved both drivers and the team up the standings while rivals remained static.

Michael Schumacher.

Photo by xpb.cc.

"I am very pleased about that," Schumacher said about the points collected recently. "It means that we have made good progress. The title race is now a little more open as Canada and the United States were good for us. However, we have to avoid becoming overly optimistic."

"The gap to the overall leader, Fernando Alonso, is a big one. The road is still long. At least we are now in a better situation in the championship. This is to our credit as we have never stopped battling and will not stop in future."

Of course, it's difficult to judge how much Ferrari has improved when the competition was notably absent at Indy. While Schumacher is pleased, he's still cautious. "We made good progress at Barcelona," he said in regard to the team's test last week. "I don't think that we can make a huge leap forward but we can certainly do better."

This weekend's French Grand Prix is the first of another double-header, with the British round taking place just a week later. Following the two week break after Silverstone are two more back-to-back races, Germany and Hungary. Many think this period of intense competition will have a decisive impact on the championship but Schumacher doesn't agree.

"This year there are so many races, even after July, that it makes no sense saying that next month will be decisive," he commented. "We will try to do our best at Magny Cours and will see what we can get out of it."

With the points scored recently, Schumacher is now third in the drivers' standings, just three points behind McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen and 25 behind leader Alonso. Barrichello is five points behind his teammate and Ferrari has moved up to equal second with McLaren in the constructors' with 63 points.