Michael Schumacher has promised an all-out attack on Fernando Alonso in the second half of the season after losing more ground to the world champion in the Canadian Grand Prix.

The Ferrari driver rescued second place in Montreal despite slipping to seventh on the opening lap, but still dropped further behind the Enstone-based Renault F1 team driver after a fourth consecutive win for the Spaniard.

Schumacher is 25 points adrift with nine races remaining, but refuses to lose hope and intends to crank up the pressure on Alonso, starting at Indianapolis next weekend.

"Our strategy can simply be to attack," he said. "We tried to do that the whole year and this is what we will concentrate on in the next races.

"Then you can only see what the outcome is. There is no other strategy for us. You simply have to look at the points situation to see exactly what the gap is."

The 37-year-old remains undaunted by Renault's stunning form this season, which has seen the world champions win seven of the nine races so far.

Schumacher has won the other two and he hopes to revisit the top step of the podium next weekend in Indianapolis.

"We managed it twice this year but six times Fernando has won and we simply have to try to turn around that trend," he added.

"We cannot and we will not give up hope because mathematically everything is still open and we strongly believe that. We will keep on fighting."

Schumacher's second place came in fortuitous circumstances after Kimi Raikkonen ran wide at the hairpin on the penultimate lap after a safety car had bunched up the field.

Schumacher hailed the result as the best he could expect after quickly realising Renault and Alonso had the upper hand.

"Kimi did me a favour and left me second position," he said. "For him I don't think it makes the difference it does for me.

"But all in all the race was just about limiting the damage we suffered. On Friday it was already clear we were not fast enough.

"In these circumstances, starting from fifth and finishing second, we can be happy."

The German won his only race of 2005 at Indianapolis in a race tarnished by a 14-car pull-out.

He was booed on the podium by fans keen to vent their anger at a six-car parade but the seven-time world champion expects a United States Grand Prix as normal this weekend.

He said: "Last year was last year. I think that there will be enough fans coming because traditionally at that race they are always big racing fans so I expect a lot of support there."