David Coulthard plans to keep his cool while his rivals feel the heat in the hottest race of the year in Malaysia on Sunday.

The super-fit Scot hopes his months of punishing work-outs in the gym and in the mountains above Monaco could give him the edge.

The early season fitness of the drivers will be a telling factor in the second race of the season with trackside temperatures at the Sepang track in Kuala Lumpur expected to top the 100F mark.

But Coulthard is renowned as being one of the fittest drivers in Formula One and he hopes that could be a factor as he bids to halt world champion Michael Schumacher's winning streak.

''The heat is going to be difficult for everyone,'' said Coulthard.

''But I don't believe I will be worse off than any of my competitors and potentially I will be better than some of them.

''There is nothing we can do about the weather so there is no point worrying about it at all."

Coulthard finished second to Schumacher in last week's opening race in Australia as the German launched the defence of his title with a sixth successive victory.

Although Coulthard conceded that Schumacher's Ferrari team have the early season edge he is confident that McLaren can hit back.

''It's quite clear that Ferrari have the advantage at the moment,'' added Coulthard, 30 later this month.

''But I think we have got a reasonable car and one that we can improve.

''We will keep working and we are certainly not giving up yet, but we know that this season is going to be a long hard slog.''

Schumacher will move within three of equalling Alberto Ascari's all-time record of nine successive wins if he triumphs at Sepang for the second year in a row.

But the three-time champion, also just six away from Alain Prost's record of 51 career wins, insists he is driving for fun.

''I'm not driving for records,'' said Schumacher, one of just four drivers who have triumphed five times in succession. Nobody, other than Ascari almost 50 years ago, has managed six in succession.

''I'm driving to enjoy competing, to do well and win races.''

Schumacher pledged he would not allow Ferrari to ease up, even though he has been handed the best car since joining the team in 1996.

''We certainly hope to continue in the same style as we started in Australia, but we can't relax,'' added Schumacher, who regained the drivers' crown for Ferrari after a 21-year absence last year.

''We have to keep fighting. The season is long and you can quickly go down if you don't keep working very hard."

Jordan's Heinz-Harald Frentzen insisted he had no regrets as a civil war broke out between him and Schumacher.

Frentzen said he had not claimed that Ferrari had been using an illegal system to aid their drivers after Schumacher accused him of bringing Formula One into disrepute.

Schumacher, whose wife Corinna is a former girlfriend of Frentzen's, had called on his fellow countryman to stop whingeing.

The world champion launched his fierce attack following Frentzen's comments after last week's opening race, when he was unable to overtake the Sauber of Nick Heidfield.

Sauber are using last year's Ferrari engines, rebadged Petronas, and started the season with Heidfeld fourth and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen sixth with Frentzen splitting them.

Frentzen said Sauber could have been using a form of traction control, a system which helps drivers by reducing wheelspin, because Heidfeld could accelerate from corners quicker than him despite him hearing their engine misfiring