Former seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher has admitted his return to Formula One has been tougher than he first anticipated.

With his Mercedes team struggling to make an impact this term, the German suggests it may take some time before they are challenging at the right end of both the drivers and constructers' championships.

"Well, it has been a much tougher year than we expected," he said. "If you think of the performance that the team was able to do last year, expectations were high.

"We have not been able to fulfil those expectations. At the same time it has been a long-term project and if I look back at how long it took with Benetton and with Ferrari to build up a team and then finally to take success, it has never been possible to do that in the short term.

"The nature of the fact that the team used to be a big team, such as the top three teams, then was reduced to a much smaller team during last year due to circumstances that everybody knows, we are now a rather small team compared to the top running teams.

"That, in the situation that we are right now, makes it, naturally, a little bit more difficult.

"But then we have made decisions and steps to get back to the winning route, although naturally it will take time."

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