2004 San Marino GP Race: Team Comments

By BMW WilliamsF1
April 26 2004

 
 
San Marino GP Race - Team Comments
 
Juan Pablo Montoya scored another podium finish today, achieving third position. The BMW WilliamsF1 Team also collected some more points with Ralf Schumacher's 7th position.

Test: Silverstone, 27-30 April: Marc Gené 27,28,30 - Ralf Schumacher 28,29 - Antonio Pizzonia 27,29
 
Juan Pablo Montoya
Juan Pablo MontoyaPosition: 3rd
Chassis: FW26 05
Best time: 1:21.870 min (lap 27, 6th overall)
"The first lap was very tough. Michael Schumacher had a poor start and was slow out of the first chicane and the first few corners. I tried to pass him but he closed the door twice. I had to back off but when I tried again he hit me and pushed me out on to the grass. I am very disappointed as this was not fair racing. Jenson had an incredibly fast pace, therefore third is the best I could do today since our car was just not quick enough. We need to improve our complete package to be competitive in order to catch-up with the leaders."
 
Ralf Schumacher
 Ralf SchumacherPosition: 7th
Chassis: FW26 07
Best time: 1:21.689 min (lap 30, 5th overall)
"Until the incident with Alonso I was quite happy with the weekend in general, obviously it was a shame what happened. It was good to score some points and I think we made the best out of our package today. It's pretty clear that we have to improve but we are not that far away."
 
Dr Mario Theissen BMW Motorsports Director
 Mario Theissen"Coming third was today the maximum Juan could achieve. Ralf's collision with Alonso unfortunately cost the team some points. The gap to the Ferrari during the race was about one second per lap which matched what we had expected beforehand. We obviously need to improve our overall performance. Reliability wise the BMW engines ran absolutely trouble free in both cars. "
 
Sam Michael Chief Operations Engineer WilliamsF1
 Sam Michael"Obviously we have got a lot of work to do to improve the car and get back to challenging at the front. After the incident with Michael at the start, Juan had a fairly quiet race but then in the closing laps of the race he had to react to Fernando Alonso. Ralf had a good start but lost ground in the Michael-Juan Pablo fight, losing one position. Our strategy went well and we should have had both cars in the top four but it didn't work out. In terms of reliabilty both cars were fine."
 
 
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HP Formula One 2004
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