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Friday, March 18, 2011
I N T E R N A T I O N A L
Sport
Schumacher hopeful of race wins Michael Schumacher is hopeful that he and team-mate Nico Rosberg will be in a position to fight for races wins this season after getting a glimpse of Mercedes GP’s true potential in the final test last week.
AFP PHOTO/JOSEP LAGO
Mercedes GP Petronas F1 Team German driver Michael Schumacher drives during a testing session on March 11, 2011 at Catalunya’s racetrack in Montmelo, near Barcelona.
Schwantz: Rider rivalry may hurt Honda Former 500cc world champion Kevin Schwantz believes the battle between Honda team-mates Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner could have a negative effect on the riders. Stoner, the 2007 world champion, left Ducati to join Honda, where Pedrosa has been the leading rider for several years. Schwantz reckons the battle between the two could lead to mistakes if one of them tries to show he is the team’s leader. “It’s a new team, a new bike, everything’s going to be a little bit different,” Schwantz told AUTOSPORT ahead of the start of the 2011 season this weekend. “The pressure is that if Pedrosa’s in your team and he’s been there a lot longer than you, they may be listening to his direction, not yours. “This is all stuff that can play on Casey’s mind. If Casey can just go out and race and not let the politics side of things bother him, I think Casey’s in with a shot, for sure. “I think as Pedrosa and Stoner’s battle progresses, one of them will let the other get to him. Casey’s going to let Dani get in his head, and Casey’s going to get into Dani’s - and I think they’ll make mistakes. “Hopefully it won’t be like Dani and Nicky Hayden in 2006, but in trying to show ‘I’m the dominant one here at Honda and you guys need to follow my direction and listen to me’, I think they might both take a little too much on their shoulders. “They’ll feel like ‘watch this, I’m going to show them’, and mistakes whether it’s crashes or just running off the track and losing a bunch of places - will be made, which will make the championship wide open.” The American, however, is in no doubt that Honda starts the season as a very strong outfit, and he thinks Stoner could be hard to beat if he can find his form. “I think it’s obvious watching the tests that Honda has got things right. There’s more than one guy that’s gone fast on the Honda,” he said. “You’ve got to think that if Casey can find the form that he had when he rode the Ducati to the 2007 world championship, then everybody will be lucky to find out which way he went, he’s going to go so fast...”
AFP PHOTO/KARIM JAAFAR
Honda MotoGP rider Casey Stoner of Australia takes part in the final pre-season test at the Losail International Circuit in the Qatari capital Doha on March 13, 2011 ahead of Grand Prix of Qatar to be held next week.
The Brackley-based team’s decision to hold back on a final update package until the Barcelona test meant its form was hard to predict, but a major overhaul of the W02 that helped Schumacher top the times on the final dry day of running has lifted hopes on the eve of the campaign. And although Schumacher thinks that the full picture of the team’s competitiveness will only become clear in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, he says he has already seen enough to be confident about a successful 2011 campaign. “My feeling is a good one,” he said in an interview with the official Mercedes GP website. “The team has been working very hard over the winter to shape our car in all of the areas which had been identified by us as needing improvement. “The data I have seen over the winter had been quite encouraging, but then we all know that the realities of data and the race track can be quite different. As a driver, you obviously hope for a good step forward and I think this is what we have achieved. “I am confident that we can compete for podium finishes, and I am hopeful we can fight for victories at some of the races. Saying that, we will only see the truth once the sea-
son gets underway, so I can hardly wait to go to Melbourne to finally see what the real picture is.” As well as progress on the car front, Schumacher believes he will also do a better job in the cockpit after a sometimes difficult 2010 return. “This year feels very different indeed,” he said. “Last year everything was new again; the testing situation, the car, the team, the structures. It was very exciting but it was still something you had to find your way through. “Now, one year later, I know much better which areas to work in. I am much more familiar with the team and we have a great group of very skilled and dedicated people. I enjoy what I do, I enjoy working with Mercedes, and I have never regretted my decision to return... if that is what you wanted to ask next!” Rosberg is equally bullish about the progress that Mercedes GP has made, and was not ruling out the W02 helping him secure his maiden F1 victory. “We’ve made good progress over the four tests. It’s perhaps been a more difficult winter than we expected but everyone has worked really hard and pushed on with the new upgrades so that we have the car that we want for the start of the season,” he said.