'The old Michael is back'

Michael Schumacher appears to have lost none of his self-confidence during his three years away from Formula One.

With the start of the new season just a month away, the seven-time World Champion has loudly proclaimed that he is back to his best.

"The old Michael is back and he has all his speed," Schumacher is quoted on the James Allen website. "I'm convinced that I have a good car and a good relationship with [Nico] Rosberg. It's great to be able to express myself to a team-mate in my own language."

Mercedes had a few glitches in both Jerez and Valencia, but they appear to have found problems and are working hard to ironed it out.

'The suspicion doing the rounds is that Mercedes has miscalculated the weight distribution slightly, with the weight too far forward. They are working to solve this with new suspension solutions,' the latest Allen story added.

Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull are expected to Mercedes' main challengers for the World Championship this season. All four have had good outings during the first two pre-season tests in Valencia and Jerez.

Although he concedes that one can't read too much into the testing times, Schumacher admits the top four appear to be in front already.

"It's very tough still to understand the order of the teams just yet as everyone can play so much with the fuel loads and even the weight distribution," he told his official website.

"To me, it looks as if the expected four teams - us, Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull - are up front, but also Sauber seems to be good so far.

"At the end of this week's programme we can say the car looks good. But then, as usual at this period prior to the season there is still a lot to happen. Only at the start of the season we will probably know more in the end."

Source: Planet F1