Dr Theissen was quoted on the BMW Motorsport web site as saying: "To be honest, I have to say that I don’t think we are currently in a position to win a race by ourselves. Following the early launch of the WilliamsF1 BMW FW26 and our excellent winter tests, we were tipped as favourites by many of the experts and the fans.

It has to be said that our pre-season preparations were really promising. However, our rivals made more progress than expected. Now we are the hunters and we have to close the gap, just as we did over the course of the 2003 season, so we are putting every effort in to making it back to the top again in 2004."

He also acknowledged the need for not only further development of the WilliamsF1 FW26 but also the P84 engine.

In the same interview Theissen added: "When it comes to the development of the BMW P84 engine, we are still focusing on reliability. Concerning the performance, we are working on being able to make the revs and peak performance used in qualifying available over the entire race distance - i.e. in the second half of the engines’ 800 kilometre life cycle. In Munich, we are doing everything we can to exploit the engine’s full potential."

As for the race at Imola Dr Theissen was also lending his support to the view that dropping the Imola circuit from the Formula One calendar was a step in the right direction. He felt that the facilities at the circuit "not really state of the art."