Friday October 18th, 2002

By Alan Baldwin

Ralf Schumacher believes controversial and eye-catching proposals to liven up Formula One next season will come to nothing. The German hopes instead that his Williams team will take steps of their own and roll out a more adventurous 2003 car to take the fight to dominant Ferrari and his older brother Michael.

"I think none of them (the proposed changes) will come but we will wait and see," Ralf told Reuters in an interview on Friday. "There are so many teams against it, so I think [the FIA] will try to reduce costs more, that's what will come in for next year. Maybe less testing."

FIA president Max Mosley and the sport's commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone have put forward various suggestions to breathe new life into the sport after a season of Ferrari domination.
The measures, including additional ballast for every point scored, will be discussed by teams at an October 28 meeting that also includes sponsors, promoters and top officials.

Mosley is determined to make the Championship closer and revive television audiences that have dropped off since Michael Schumacher won his fifth title with six races to spare.

Ralf said the ballast suggestion was the most workable but was pinning his hopes more on Williams making a big step forward than on changes slowing down Ferrari.

Big Step

Ralf gave the overall runners-up their only win of the year in Malaysia and said it had become clear at the first race in Europe that they had a problem.

"Imola we should have won easily. We couldn't, so that was pretty clear," he said. "What was frustrating was that we couldn't improve. It's one thing if you are not good enough and another if you can't improve.

"That's the only frustrating thing - that basically after mid-season we stayed on the same speed and didn't move anywhere. We improved slightly but only on mechanical stuff.

"And that's the problem we are having now and facing over the winter, that basically we start from zero and have to risk everything we can to make a proper car.

"I am sure we will take more risks for next year to have something that will bring us a huge step forward, that's what we need," he said. "We have to improve mainly in aerodynamics and we have to improve in reliability. We dropped off too many times this year. if we want to beat a team like Ferrari we can't afford this."

Scrap Spa

Ralf welcomed the arrival of China and Bahrain on the World Championship calendar from 2004 and made clear that he would shed no tears if the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa - one of the sport's great circuits - were scrapped.

Next season's Belgian round has yet to be approved due to local tobacco advertising restrictions and risks being cancelled unless all the teams agree this month on it going ahead.

"I wouldn't miss Spa," said Schumacher, whose brother rates it as his favourite circuit. "It's just very unstable weather, quite difficult to get to without any traffic jams. I think for the spectators it's just not very good to look at anyway."

Schumacher also rebuffed teammate Juan Pablo Montoya for suggesting that he had a fixation about beating the Colombian and raced harder against him than any other rival.

"I am a bit surprised actually about what he's on about. I mean, he's usually the tough guy - or pretends to be - so it's very surprising for me," said Ralf. "If I am trying to gain a position, whether it is with my teammate or whoever, I don't care."

Montoya and Ralf collided at the US Grand Prix last month, an incident that earned both a talking to from team bosses and Montoya was still chafing in Japan last weekend.

"Sometimes you see harder racing from Ralf with me than with anybody else," Montoya told Britain's Motorsport News. "You don't see Ralf changing lines to block Michael down the straight, do you?

"The only guy he changes his racing against to be harder is me, and that shouldn't be. If you are racing hard with me then you should race hard with everybody."

Published at 17:32:51 GMT