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Schumacher Optimistic After Analyzing Mercedes Data

Michael Schumacher changed his mind about the winning opportunities that his new Mercedes W01 might offer him in the first few rounds of the 2010 F1 season. Asked on Friday, following his first test day on the Barcelona track, how he rates Merc’s chances of leaving Bahrain with a race win two weeks from now, the 7-time world champion admitted they’re small.

However, 24 hours later, when asked again about it by the reporters present at Barcelona, the German driver revealed he may have spoken too early. After reviewing the data in the Mercedes GP garage, Schumacher insisted one can’t tell exactly how his team is performing as compared to their championship rivals.

This was an initial feeling and it looks like that maybe we were running more fuel than others on Friday and that is why track times didn't look so good. Now I've looked at the data it looks not so bad, it looks very reasonable. So let's see where we are in reality,” said the 41-year old German.

In fact, he even showed a little trace of optimism regarding the W01, while continuing to suggest podium, rather than race wins, should be his team’s target for the opening rounds of the 2010 season.

Yesterday I was a little bit pessimistic but after studying the data last night actually it looks more reasonable than I thought,” added Schumacher, who also admitted that Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa look like the team/drivers to beat in 2010.

The German is currently driving the W01 in its last test of the winter, during Day 4 of the Barcelona test, after which he’ll focus fully on the opening round of the 2010 campaign, scheduled for March 12-14, in Bahrain.
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