Michael Schumacher kicked off his 1999 World Championship season in Australia yesterday by scoring three goals in a game of football. The Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro driver played against other drivers in a pre-race match in Melbourne where the year's first Grand Prix takes place on Sunday. "It was a bit embarrassing in some ways because the other players didn't really attack me at all, maybe to save my legs or to allow me to score a goal. Almost anyone could have scored some of my goals. But I got to run and had some exercise. It was fun."

Later, the two time World Champion spoke of the coming season, and whether this could be Ferrari's year after coming so close for the last two seasons. "As I've said many times before, sport is very unpredictable and we just have to do our job consistently from the beginning to the end. Obviously, the opposition is very strong as well, so we will see who is the better. As a team, in my opinion, we are much stronger than the rest and we hope that we have the car to win the title."

So how much improvement was needed to overtake McLaren, the current World Champions? "It's difficult to quantify in actual time," replied Schumacher, "but the point was that we had some weaknesses last year which meant we were not competitive at all the circuits which we thought was because of the variation of set-up possibilities that we have."

"We took note of those weaknesses and we worked very hard on them. What we have achieved has certainly been a step forward. The car at the end of last season was very close to McLaren's. We should be competitive with them following the improvements that we've made, or we shouldn't be that far off. And even if we are a little behind, perhaps at the beginning, I'm not too worried."

So, how motivated is Michael himself? "It's not difficult to be motivated. I love to do this job, and you do anything you love very easily. We've had a bad start to the season for the last two years, but then as we've made progress, automatically you become very motivated. This year we feel that we're in with a chance of winning from the start, so that makes you even more motivated."

This year, Bridgestone is the only tyre supplier. What difference will that make?

"It won't just affect us, it will mean that the whole field is much closer because last year the differences were just huge. Now it's down to the car and engine itself and you can't make too many mistakes with those. This is the second year of these regulations, and people know what they have to do now.

"Obviously, because of the extra groove there will be less grip and more sliding. But I must say that Bridgestone have done a good job with the tyres. They don't feel too bad thanks to the development that they've done since the first test in Suzuka up to now. It's now much more comfortable for us drivers."

So how has testing gone?

"We've done less miles than last year, but we've prepared well and we used the time very efficiently. We feel that we've done the homework we should have done, but Sunday will tell. We thought last year that we were well prepared, but we found out we weren't. This year we've prepared for every circumstance."

So how does he feel about the coming season? "Obviously, we feel it's going to be good. I have great expectations, loads of them. It just takes too long before it starts. I can't wait."