WilliamsF1 Team Comments Saturday Qualifying

By Andrew Hooper
September 28 2003

 
 
United States GP Saturday - Team Comments
 
The BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher qualified today in 4th and 5th position respectively and will start tomorrow's US GP from the second and third row.
 
Juan Pablo Montoya
Juan Pablo Montoya"My first sector was ok but I had quite a bit of oversteer in the second and third sectors and this wasn't ideal, as I lost about three tenths there. We could have done a little bit better but that's what we've got and I am still confident we will have a good race ahead of us. I would really like to please all the South American fans who have come here to support me. I know I have an excellent race car, we've got good power too and this is important. It's interesting to see Kimi up there, instead of Michael: Kimi is always full of surprises!"
 
Ralf Schumacher
 Ralf Schumacher"The very first part of my lap was very weak, as one can see from my sector-time. Beside this, we had to change the car a lot from the warm-up to qualifying, because of the accident I had in this morning's Free Practice, when I braked too late and went off track into the barriers, as it caused me to lose quite a lot of valuable track time. Still I managed to qualify in a reasonable position so I am fairly happy. I will start tomorrow from the better side of the track so I hope I will have a good start."
 
Dr Mario Theissen BMW Motorsports Director
 Mario Theissen"Neither of our drivers had an ideal lap today, and both of them have not been one hundred percent happy with the handling of the cars. We will see what the grid positions four and five are worth when the time comes for the first pit-stops. Apart from race strategy, an important issue will be who will manage to overtake on the oval's straight. If you look at the top speeds, I would say our drivers have pretty good chances to do so."
 
Sam Michael Chief Operations Engineer WilliamsF1
 Sam Michael"We did not qualify where we would have liked to. The cars were not perfectly balanced in this session. But we are still confident for a strong race tomorrow. I am sure it will be be an exciting one with the grid the way it is."
 
 
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