BMW WilliamsF1 Team Reactions Thursday Practice

By BMW WilliamsF1 Team
May 19 2005

Reactions ... Monaco GP Thursday Practice

It was a trouble-free first day to the Monaco Grand Prix weekend for the BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers Mark Webber and Nick Heidfeld, who set the 12th and 16th fastest times respectively in today’s Free Practice sessions.

Mark Webber Chassis: FW27 05 / BMW P84/5 engine: 2nd GP 1st Practice: 11th (1:18.859 min) 2nd Practice: 12th (1:17.422 min) "It was a pretty good day of running for us and we got through everything we had planned. We managed to do quite a lot of laps with both cars which is good. We are having a day off tomorrow so we’ll have more time to look at the data and take the right decision, especially with regards to our tyre choice together with our partners Michelin. In general we are doing ok, we just need to find a bit more pace."

Nick Heidfeld Chassis: FW27 06 (Spare car FW27 04) / BMW P84/5 engine: 2nd GP 1st Practice: 7th (1:18.244 min) 2nd Practice: 16th (1.17.667 min) "It was a good Thursday here, and we had no technical problems. It was good fun running on this outstanding circuit. Unfortunately, in the second session I didn’t get in a clean lap in the end, due to many yellow flags. More importantly, we got all of our work done and we managed to do a lot of laps, which will help in our tyre decision, to be taken before Saturday."

Dr Mario Theissen BMW Motorsports Director "Both the drivers concentrated today on the tyre choice and managed to run six and ten timed laps in a row, under race conditions. Beside this, we worked on adapting traction control in lower revs conditions. Through the narrow streets of Monaco, we use lower revs than anywhere else. The third issue that we worked on today were the temperatures, which due to the lower average speeds here in Monaco, we clearly reach hotter water temperatures than on other faster circuits."

Sam Michael Chief Operations Engineer WilliamsF1 "We spent the day doing our regular homework for the race – evaluating the different tyres, checking brakes for temperatures and doing the normal engine cooling checks. We made several changes to the cars during the sessions and have improved the set-up. Saturday will be spent working finding some more improvements for the race. We have also brought some new aerodynamic parts for this race which appear to be working well."