Schumacher relinquishes title on painful day.

September the fourth 2005 will be a day that goes down in Formula One history as the moment that Michael Schumacher finally lost his grip on the Formula One World Championship, after a tenth place finish in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza made it mathematically impossible for the German to retain the crown he has won every year since 2000.

Although the title race has realistically only been between Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen for some time, Schumacher was still in with the most remote of chances of taking the title himself heading to Ferrari's home race - but second place for points leader Alonso meant Schumacher would have been dethroned as title regardless of his finishing position.

However his failure to even score points means race winner Juan Pablo Montoya is now just five points behind Schumacher - with the superior pace of the McLaren package enough to suggest that Schumacher is unlikely to even finish the season inside the top three.

"Clearly, our race did not go well and we were much too slow," Schumacher admitted after the Italian race. "We are nowhere near where we want to be but we have to live with it. You could say we were a bit better than in Turkey, but that is still not good enough.

"Running ninth, I was prepared to take some risks to get a point, but I risked a bit too much and went off the track, which lost me a place. There is no point in getting angry about our situation, we must simply try and improve, maybe in time for Spa, although that is unlikely, but possibly before the end of the season.

"The championship was obviously lost a while ago, but we have had a lot of good years before this one. There is no need to give up because this is all part of competition. I feel sorry for the tifosi and thank them for their support, even though we were not able to deliver them a good result."

Team-mate Rubens Barrichello also failed to score any points in twelfth place on a day Ferrari team boss Jean Todt could only describe as painful

"Yet another painful day in what has been a difficult season for us," he said. "We fought really hard to try and finish in the points, but we did not manage it. This was another big disappointment with both cars making it to the finish but with no points to our name. We are very disappointed for our fans and our staff who were here in the grandstand at Monza.

"The main problem afflicting us is, as everyone knows, a lack of grip and all we can do is continue to work with our partners at Bridgestone to fix it. Next weekend, in the Belgian Grand Prix, at Spa-Francorchamps, we can once again expect a difficult weekend. But hopefully we can show that this current situation can be turned around in the final three rounds of the championship.

"Despite the fact that we are going through very difficult times, the team and the drivers have once again worked very hard. We have shown that we are really determined to get the most out of the package we have at our disposal."