Decision in a matter of weeks

The negotiations between BMW and WilliamsF1 have bee on-going for quite some time and there has even been discussion as to what BMW would do if they decided to end the partnership at the end of 2004, including the option of running their own team or supplying another team.

In respect of the decision Dr Theissen said: "I should say we will probably come to an agreement. The probability is probably beyond 50 per cent and if that happens I think that will happen in weeks rather than in months after half a year of negotiation."

There has been a degree of finger pointing on the part of certain individuals, mainly directed at the WilliamsF1 team, regarding the poor results that the team have achieved so far in the 2003 season. The last race that the team has won was back in Malaysia in 2002.

There were even comments saying that BMW should not be criticising the WilliamsF1 team about the poor performance of the FW25 in light of the BMW engine failure that cost Juan Pablo Montoya any chance of victory in last weekends Austrian Grand Prix.

In respect of this failure Dr Theissen said that the team knew that there was a problem, and that he would not finish the race.

He said: "We knew at the start that Juan Pablo had a problem and this problem could cause him not to finish this race.

"After 20 laps we knew he couldn't finish because we saw the water pressure going down continuously and it was clear he couldn't make it. It's very disappointing to lose the car if you are leading and it was the first technical failure since Suzuka last year on the car."

But in what many could describe as an another subtle criticism of the WilliamsF1 team Theissen hinted that the failure of the engine was cause by a problem outside of the engine, ie the problem was not BMW's.

Theissen added: "We had an engine failure but that was the consequence of another problem. But there's no point looking at if its BMW or Williams. We'll take a joint approach, analyse the problem and make a solution."

What ever the cause of the recent engine failure both BMW and WilliamsF1 have to finalise the decision regarding the extension of their partnership. After all at the end of this season both parties have only 12 months in which to finalise alternative arrangements.