Championship leader Michael Schumacher and reigning World Champion Mika Hakkinen both participated in today's FIA "Thursday Four" press conference, along with local boys Marc Gene (Minardi) and Pedro de la Rosa (Arrows).

Both championship dualists were cautios regarding their prospects for this weekend. "We have done plenty of testing this year in Barcelona," Hakkinen said, "and we have been able to get a reasonably quite good balance to the car. Yes, I can say I'm quite confident here, but then again, we will see on Sunday what happens."

Hakkinen also referred to his car's performance in Monaco, where his third place from pole lead to speculations that he was suffering from suspension problems. However, Hakkinen dismissed this, though saying, "The car was extremely difficult to drive in the race, and to find the car on the limit, and to keep the car on the limit in Monaco is extremely difficult. The level of difficulties that I had in the car was so high, every lap was too much on the limit, and I could have basically hit the barrier on every corner. The team hasn't found anything wrong in the car--it was just too difficult to drive."

Q: After your very fast second run, you changed the rear wing. Was that another gamble?

Hakkinen: "We tried, yes. We wanted to see how the car was with a different wing setting. We still have to make our choices for the race."

Michael Schumacher confirmed that his team was planning to run a new engine at Spain, but decided not to use it, as it is not ready yet. It was also the plan to have some new chassis parts, but we are not ready with these things yet," said the German.

Schumacher said he expects the Spanish weekend to be difficult for his team, "but, as I usually say, not an impossible weekend."

"As I expected," he said, "Monaco was a good circuit for Ferrari and this is probably the worst circuit for us in our current situation. It will be a difficult weekend, but we will work and we have some ideas on how to improve compared to the last test. And we will find out whether we succeed or not."

Q: Why is this particular circuit so much worse than others for you?

Schumacher: "In general it is 180 degrees different compared to Monaco. Monaco is very slow speed and a little bit bumpy. Here you have a very flat circuit, and probably less grip from the tarmac itself. You have high temperature, much faster corners and much faster speed, so it's completely different. Therefore, we may have bigger problems. What the reason is for that, I can't precisely tell you. It's probably a bit of everything. We may suffer on mechanical grip, aerodynamic grip, and a little bit on engine power in comparison. Little steps in each area make a certain gap."

Q. Michael, you say that this is the worst track of the year for you. Does that make you despondent when you have this challenge here?

Schumacher: "Yes and no. Yes, because we have to face a race where we may not be as competitive as in Monaco. It is something that you don't like but you have to accept. We can accept it because we have a lead in the points. If it is only this race, then it is not going to be a big problem. We have a big development going on in our car which shows promising results, but we don't have it for here. But it will improve this situation if we hit it again during the season, and there will be circuits coming that have a similar nature to this one. I believe that we will be prepared for that time, but we are not prepared now."

Q: If you were close to McLaren here, or even beat them, that would be a hammer blow to them because McLaren would expect to have a big advantage here.

Schumacher: "It depends on the circumstances. If you have a perfectly clear situation, and it would be like this, I would first of all be surprised and pleased. And maybe McLaren wouldn't! Let's see what happens on Saturday and Sunday, Then we will make a judgement."

Q: Mika, would it be a hammer blow if you did not win here?

Hakkinen: "No, I don't think it would be a disaster. But it would be very close to disaster! But it would not be a disaster. We will have to see what happens on Saturday and Sunday. It's impossible to look back on test results 100 percent and make a judgement out of that how competitive we are and how competitive the other teams are. If you are talking about the feeling of the car, yes it feels good on the track. It feels quick. Is that enough? That's difficult to say."