Michael Schumacher has been making the most of the winter break, but next week it's back to business, as he returns to work and begins his preparations for the 2005 season, and what could be an eighth title.
Speaking at Madonna di Campiglio, where Ferrari is hosting its annual get together with the media, was asked how he thinks racing will change this year, in light of the new rules.
"Well, it's obviously going to change in some degree, if you appreciate that you have one set of tyres for the whole race which you have to manage," he replied. "I think this is the biggest thing: to preserve this set of tyres and drive appropriately the whole race in order to finish properly and have good tyres left in the end. But everything I have seen from Bridgestone looks very promising in this direction, that we have done very good homework so far.
"We still have a couple of months left in order to be prepared for Melbourne and even further improve," he continued, "but for myself I actually look forward in a way, because we've had cars developing in a direction where, in certain speed corners, you weren't able to move the car any more because it was so stuck to the track that if you had whatever balance - an oversteer balance or an understeer balance and normally it goes to understeer balance - you weren't able to fight that balance. You sort of had to deal with what was there and the car was very stable.
"What I have driven at the end of the last year was obviously more in the direction of what we're going to face this year, and that made the car a little bit more loose, a little bit more fun to drive in a way, and I very much look forward that I can work the car whenever I have a whatever - understeer, oversteer - I can work the car and I can deal with that problem, and I'm very much looking forward to this. I think it's more fun."
Not having driven since the end of last season, Schumacher was asked how keeps in touch with developments over the winter, and who he communicates with.
"Obviously Ross Brawn," he replied, "and then there's Rory, there's my personal engineer, there's Jean, there's our aerodynamicists, the engine guys. I have contact with any of them, whenever I feel there's an open point and I should talk to them about. If I have to know something, we are in communication and that's pretty regularly. There is no time frame. It's when you think it should be. It's sometimes every day, it's sometimes not for a week, especially between Christmas and New Year. A lot of people were away from the factory, there was nothing happening, so you talk whenever things move on."
Ferrari press officer, Luca Colajanni, reveals that Schumacher will drive the 'interim' car (F2004B) either next week or the week after in Italy, the c ar will he will use next week is the car that Gene drove at Jerez.
With that in mind, the German is asked what the programme is and when he'll drive the 2005 car for the first time.
"The new car, the 2005 car, is going to arrive by the end of February," he replies, "and as we are not going to use that for the start of the season, we are going to have an interim solution and every update will always be available for the interim solutions car, which is last year's car, which we have changed to the new regulations. We're going to test this car and we're going to race this car with whatever steps are arriving and we are obviously improving and adapting the car to the circumstances. So I will have the latest spec car in Barcelona, to whatever is available to us and then we will have to see from there how we can move on."
On the new the thorny subject of the new qualifying format, and the fact that drivers will have to use just one set of tyres per race, Schumacher says: "It doesn't really matter very much. There is a rule and you work to this rule. To me it's not very important.
"The main things are still the same," he continues, "there are two qualifying sessions, some people will like it, some people won't like it. It's the same every time you change something, you will have pros and contras but the racing is going to be the same, just under different circumstances and those are the same for everybody."
To check out our gallery of images from Madonna di Campiglio, click here
