Michael Schumacher yesterday said he believes the run of luck that has seen him take four wins and a 12-point championship lead must end soon. The German, arriving in Montreal to begin preparations for Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix, admitted he had been gifted a remarkable run of reliability, finishing all but one of the seven races staged so far, but forecast problems ahead.
"Always in a season over 17 races you have your good moments and your bad moments and they come whenever they're supposed to come," he said. "You can't steer that. We had the first one in Imola and it won't be the last one."
Schumacher added that the swings and roundabouts of fortune are also due to shift in favour of his closest championship rival David Coulthard. "To some degree David has been lucky in finishing all the races," he said, "but he has been unlucky twice in his getaways from the grid. That will surely change. In the end it levels out."
Eight races in last year and the circus was, as now, in Montreal. Occupying centre stage were Schumacher and Coulthard. As with this year, Schumacher had four wins to Coulthard's two and carried a 12-point lead onto the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Schumacher may have upped his performance thanks to Ferrari's F12001 but it's clear Coulthard has too, and with machinery far less pliable than Schumacher's.
However, if Coulthard is looking to Canada to elevate him to Scumacher's heights, the record books won't provide much hope. Despite his avowed love of the Ile de Notre Dame's bumpy and dusty circuit, Coulthard has had a miserable time around the high-speed track. In seven starts he has never finished higher than fourth, achieved in 1996, with McLaren. It has been a downward curve since, with a nonfinish in 1998 and seventh place finishes in his last two outings.
Once again much will depend on Coulthard's fickle launch control system, which the Scot said he would again be using this weekend despite stalling on the grids in two of the last three grands prix. Coulthard insisted that the failure in Monaco was not a launch control issue but was a problem with another part of the engine control unit.
Having the McLaren on all 10 cylinders rather than none would be an advantage, especially on a circuit which Schumacher appears to have in his pocket, with four wins from nine starts and of the races completed, only finished off the podium once - a fifth place with Benetton in 1995.
Meanwhile, Jaguar boss Bobby Rahal yesterday reiterated his belief McLaren designer Adrian Newey signed a contract to join Jaguar when his McLaren deal ends in August 2002. Rahal said, having received confirmation from a Queen's Counsel that the contract was a binding agreement, Jaguar would pursue the matter for all it was worth.
