Schumacher: we can fight back

Michael Schumacher believes he can be competitive in Monaco despite the five-place grid penalty he will incur on Saturday as a result of his accident with Bruno Senna at the Spanish Grand Prix two weeks ago.

The seven-time champion ran into the back of Senna’s Williams during the race in Barcelona and despite laying the blame at the feet of the Brazilian, the FIA stewards ruled that the crash was the Mercedes driver’s fault and docked him five grid spots this weekend. However, in today’s FIA press conference, Schumacher insisted that he could come back from the penalty in the race and cited as an example his infamous 2006 race weekend in which he was penalised for parking his car across the track during qualiyfing and started from the rear of the field.

“I think we’re going to be in a position to be competitive,” he said. “As a general track profile I think it’s going to suit ourselves. Indeed, I have [come] from the complete back and gone forward to fifth position I think. “Let’s see from where I finally manage to qualify and start the race and what can be done. It is certainly not ideal, but it is what it is and I look forward to it and I’m going to have some excitement pretty certainly.”

The Barcelona crash again shone the spotlight on Schumacher’s difficulties this season and prompted Ross Brawn to suggest that the team had let him down in the opening races of the campaign. The German, however, was quick to deny Brawn’s assertion. “If you think where we’re coming from last year, we have made a huge step forward,” he said. “We have proven that we are able to win races. Yes indeed, I have been a bit on the unlucky side but we’re a team, we are one big family and we win together and we lose together, it’s part of it.

“It’s probably that that he [Brawn] wants to talk about,” he added. “But no, I don’t feel at all disappointed – if anything, the reverse: more motivated because of how much progress we have made and I can see the future progress that we can make and that’s what is much more in my focus.”