Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, keen to put last season's disappointments behind him, said on Tuesday that his team's new car for 2006 looked "promising".
"On first impression the car is promising," said Schumacher, who won the world championship title with Ferrari for five straight years before sliding to a distant third place last year.
The driver was speaking as Ferrari unveiled the 248 F1 car which it hopes will power the squad back to glory in 2006. The team won the constructors' title for six years in a row before finishing way behind Renault and McLaren in 2005.
Schumacher and his new team-mate, Felipe Massa of Brazil, have been putting the new car through its paces at the team's Mugello track in Tuscany over recent days.
"It's early to say now, but the car seems competitive. Just how competitive it is will emerge when it races against the others," he said at Tuesday's presentation.
The 37-year-old German, whose contract with Ferrari expires at the end of 2006, is thought by many pundits to be going into his last season in Formula 1. Schumacher has said he will decide on his future about halfway through the coming season, by which time it will be clear how the new car compares to those developed by Renault and McLaren.
Because Ferrari finished third in the team championship last year, he will race with the number 5 on his car this season, as opposed to the number 1 which has been there since 2000. His Brazilian team-mate Massa will have number 6. "Seeing the new cars with the numbers five and six is a return to the distant past for us and a great incentive to improve," team chief Jean Todt commented.
"The entire squad wants to get back to top spot," he added.
Massa, the 24-year-old newcomer to the Ferrari team, was enthusiastic with the car's performance after tests. "I'm impressed. It's fast and seems very reliable," he told reporters.
The 24-year-old said he was setting himself one objective at a time as he settled in at the illustrious Italian team.
"First, a podium finish, then a win. Third goal: the championship, but we'll see about that as we go along."
All Formula 1 teams have had to radically redesign their cars this year, substituting the 3,000cc V10 engines used last season for 2,400cc V8 models. The changes were brought in by F1 authorities to cut horse power and reduce track speeds, contributing to overall safety.
The car that Schumacher and Massa will be driving is 4.54 metres long, 1.79 metres wide and only 95 cm high. With oil, water and a driver, it weighs about 600 kg. Because of the changes in regulations, everything about the car is more tightly packed, experts commented, noting also that it has a lower nose than last year's and curved rear wings for better aerodynamics.
