"The situation is not looking good," Schumacher says (ANSA) - Monte Carlo, May 26 - Ferrari was surprisingly slow in the first practice sessions for Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix and for former world champion Michael Schumacher "the situation is not looking good" .

The morning practice session Thursday saw Schumacher clock the fourth best time, but in the afternoon he fell to 15th place, while teammate Felipe Massa improved his time from 14th to 10th place .

According to Schumacher, "the results can in part be explained by the fact that we used just one set of tires, unlike many of the other cars. But we cannot hide the fact that the situation does not look good" .

"At the moment we are just too slow and we have to find out why. There is much work to do but we have enough experience to get out of this situation," he added .

Massa agreed and said "we have a lot of work to do to be competitive in qualifying and the race. In the practices we worked mainly on finding the right balance on the car, as well as assessing the two types of tires available" .

"What we need is a tire which gives us speed in qualifying as well as reliability for the race," he explained. Speed was also Ferrari's main problem at the May 14 Spanish Grand Prix where Schumacher came in second behind the Renault of Fernando Alonso, the driver who last year dethroned him as world champion after five straight years .

Between races Ferrari has done extensive testing both in Italy and in France .

Speaking after Thursday's practice sessions, Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn admitted that "we did not get the performance we were expecting from the tires, which suffered from a slight lack of grip. However, I'm confident the situation will improve and I think we will be stronger than we have appeared" .

"The cars worked well and their balance was pretty good. I'm optimistic about the rest of the weekend," Brawn added .

One third of the 2006 season has already been completed and Ferrari is currently in second place in the constructors' championship, 19 points behind Renault .

Schumacher is also in second place in the race for the drivers' title, 15 points back from Alonso .

The Renault driver was the fastest in the first session here and although he improved his time he slipped to fourth in the afternoon practice .

Italian teammate Giancarlo Fisichella was third in the morning and seventh in the afternoon .