2004 Bahrain GP Race Team Comments

By BMW WilliamsF1
April 7 2004



	Bahrain GP Race - Team Comments

	After an eventful first running of the Bahrain GP, the BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya came 7th and 13th respectively. Neither of the drivers could exploit their good qualifying positions (3rd JPM and 4th RS) since Ralf had a number of mishaps which pushed him down the field and Juan Pablo had a technical failure in the last part of the race, when he was running in a strong third position. Test: Barcelona 7-9 April: Scott Dixon all days, Gené 7-8, Ralf Schumacher 8-9

	Juan Pablo Montoya Position: 13th Chassis: FW26 05 Best time: 1:30.977 min (lap 28, 6th overall) "It’s clear that we are not quick enough to match Ferrari, at the moment, but today we were the quickest on Michelin tyres and this is very important for us. Maybe I went for the wrong tyres, as they didn’t prove as quick in the race as I was expecting but still I had a good pace and would have come third, if I hadn’t had a gearbox problem with about 10 laps to go. I first lost the seventh gear and then a few more gears and then I eventually lost all drive. There was nothing else to do but try to finish the race which is why I continued and ultimately it was disappointing, of course, because I couldn’t even finish in the points."

	Ralf Schumacher Position: 7th Chassis: FW26 03 Best time: 1:30.781 min (lap 56, 3rd overall) "After all that happened in my race I would define my final position as limitation of damages. The collision with Sato was an unfortunate race incident, from my point of view, however, he was a bit optimistic in thinking to get back the position he had simply just lost. All in all, I am not too disappointed because I have seen from the data that I was running close to Ferrari’s pace, whenever I had free track ahead. This leaves some room for hope."

	Dr Mario Theissen BMW Motorsports Director "After we had a good qualifying we have seen today that Ferrari are again in a class of their own in the race. Juan Pablo was losing about 0.5 sec a lap from Michael Schumacher, before he had a gearbox problem which pushed him down. After his problems, Ralf still made his way up from the back of the field to finish in 7th position. Of course we were expecting to come out of the first three flyaway races more successfully. Now it’s all about improving our package."

	Sam Michael Chief Operations Engineer WilliamsF1 "Today's result is disappointing for us, in particular due to the gearbox failure on Juan's car. Up until this problem occurred, which was ten laps before the end of the race, it looked like he would finish third. Third place would still not have matched our goals, Ferrari has beaten us fairly here. Ralf had to come into the pits after the early incident with Sato and this compromised the strategy on his car."

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