If it was not for Ralf Schumacher's surname, a tally of four grand-prix victories would look pretty respectable. But comparison with his older brother Michael's record of 64 wins and five world championships makes it look decidedly modest. If it depresses Ralf, he shows no sign of betraying the feeling.

Tomorrow's Malaysian grand prix marks a notable anniversary for Williams. Last year's event was the last time they won a race, Ralf Schumacher heading a Williams one-two ahead of Juan Pablo Montoya.

Michael Schumacher, in the meantime, has won 10 of the 16 grands prix. Ralf insists he is not intimidated by his brother's record. He talks about him in respectful terms, yet he gives the impression they are more like kith than kin.

"We are very relaxed," says Ralf, carefully weighing his words, "although it's difficult to answer as to how the relationship works. Yes, we'll always be brothers. Yes, we're very close but we are very competitive at the same time. We've only got very close [and had problems] on a couple of occasions when we were fighting for wins or positions.

"Michael's too competitive to look after me. I know where his limits are and where my limits are. I wouldn't try a stupid move and I don't think he would make one on me now."

The scant consolation Ralf can take from their sibling rivalry is his victory in the 2001 Canadian grand prix ahead of Michael's Ferrari, which was the first one-two by brothers in formula one.

"Michael and I don't talk much about racing," says Ralf. "He lives in Switzerland, I'm in Austria. We've both got families and generally don't spend a lot of time together. Even from our first year in formula one together we never really talked about cars or racing issues at the circuit.

"He didn't want to; and after a while I didn't want to do that also. In that respect I suppose you could say that it took me some time, perhaps, to realise just how competitive formula one is.

"When I was going to leave Jordan, Michael gave me some advice on some of my options and, interestingly, he asked me what I thought about his quitting Benetton back in 1995 even though I wasn't even near getting into formula one myself at that time."

After quitting Jordan at the end of the 1998 season, Ralf joined Williams, finishing the campaign in a creditable sixth position in the drivers' championship.

His team started their alliance with BMW with high hopes in 2000 and a run of four wins in 2001, three to Schumacher and one to Montoya, raised expectations that they could challenge Ferrari closer for the world championship last year.

But somehow the combination never gelled and, again this season, it looks as though the latest Williams FW25 is not yet the potential winner it may have looked in Montoya's hands in the season's opener at Melbourne, where he finished second. Ralf Schumacher finished eighth and his brother fourth.

"I think under normal circumstances, if the two Ferraris had run trouble-free to the finish in Melbourne, we would not have looked quite so competitive as we did," said Ralf.

"Looking at Michael's race performance it looked as though he had the same sort of fuel levels as we did, perhaps even a bit more, in qualifying but he was still 0.8sec quicker, which tells you that Ferrari were capable of making a one-two again. In addition McLaren started on the wrong tyres and had to make an extra stop but still finished the race [with both drivers] on the podium.

"You could argue that, if Juan had not spun he would have won the race, but McLaren were right there because they had a better race than we did. We had a very good result and were all happy about it but we're not out of our problems and we still have to find a lot of performance."

Ralf Schumacher's relationship with Montoya is not close. Since the Colombian driver replaced Jenson Button as Ralf's team-mate in 2001 the two men have been on little more than nodding terms.

Williams insiders hint that Montoya shrewdly positioned himself on his arrival, casting himself in the role of the genial and gregarious new boy, something to which the mechanics responded against the backdrop of Schumacher's aloof and superior demeanour.

Ralf sees his relationship with his team-mate as reflecting merely a lack of personal chemistry but admits to spending little time off the track with him.

"I wouldn't say that I dislike him but we are totally different people with different interests. We haven't even ever had a dinner together. I don't know, it's very strange. We talk to each other normally at the races but nothing beyond that.

"There was some tension between us at the beginning, although more created from outside the team than from within it, but there's no real problem now. The situation is just fine by me."