The team were hoping to take the fight to Ferrari and McLaren this season but instead are battling with Renault for third place after the FW25 proved not as quick as hoped.

But Schumacher is convinced he can fight for wins this season although he refuses to talk about battling for the championship.

“Another two months we should be up there,” said Schumacher, who scored the team’s last victory – 21 races ago – in Malaysia last year when he led home Montoya.

“We had better be, it’s something we need to push forward. It’s a very important period for us to understand this car, to get this car to the optimum and understand what to do for next year.

“It is nearly mid-season but it’s looking very promising. We have got the right people in the right places and there is a lot to come, a lot in the pipeline so I am very optimistic about that.

“I don’t want to comment about the championship. At the moment we are after wins and podiums which we haven’t managed a lot this year. Let’s achieve that first on a consistent base, once we reach that then we can talk about next year.

“It is fair to say that when we started in February with the testing of the new car it wasn’t brilliant but we have made a big step since.

“We do even more tests than we ever did before and the drivers are taking more responsibility because this FW25 is something new to the whole team.

“On one side you can say yes we have under-performed. But then many teams this year seem to have had difficulties.”

Montoya was leading in Austria last weekend after benefiting when Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari caught fire only to be denied by a blown engine.

The problems this season have caused friction between Williams and BMW, especially as they are in the middle of talks about extending their current agreement which ends in 2004.