San Marino GP practice: BMW WilliamsF1 Team

San Marino Grand Prix - FREE PRACTICE 13th April 2001

Media contact:

BMW Guido Stalmann tel: +49(0) 170 5666 112 guido.stalmann@bmw.de

Weather: Rain in the morning, dry in the afternoon. Air temperature 14°C average. Track temperature 20°C average. Humidity 70%

A mixed result for the BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers in the first Free Practice sessions of the 2001 San Marino Grand Prix. Ralf Schumacher was 3rd but Juan Pablo Montoya achieved no timed laps in the second session, on a drying track, due to technical problems with his FW23.

Ralf Schumacher Position: 3rd Chassis: FW23 03 (T-Car Chassis: FW23 01) Best Time: 1:25.829 "Even though the first Free Practice session is not so significant, position three is not a bad start, furthermore the gap to those behind me is quite big. The positive trend therefore goes on. What could disturb us here is the rain. My car is still a bit nervous and we have to improve the set-up, but the base is good."

Juan Pablo Montoya Position: 22nd Chassis: FW23 02 Best Time: 1:39.812 "In the morning practice we tried different tyres and I was trying to learn the track but in the wet it was very difficult. In the afternoon, when it was finally dry, I could do one lap only and I heard a strange noise coming from the engine. I came in and BMW told us we had to call it a day."

Patrick Head (Technical Director WilliamsF1) "We had a mixed day. Ralf's car has been running well and trouble free and we've done some useful work looking between the two tyres that Michelin have offered us and helping us to make a decision for tomorrow afternoon and Sunday. Juan Pablo ran in the damp this morning but this afternoon, after doing just one lap, he felt something was wrong with the engine. He came in and the BMW engineers had a good look at the engine and told us that we shouldn't be running any more in order to save that engine from further damage."

Dr Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director) "In the second session Ralf has shown that we are strong on this track as well. Our car is the fastest in the quicker parts of the track. At the start of the second session Juan Pablo told us that he had a power loss and a misfire therefore we called him in and decided to change the engine as a precaution. We cannot identify here the reason for this problem, but we didn't want to run any risk therefore we are sending the engine back to Munich to be analysed."

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Sylvia Proudfoot spur07@cs.com 403 287 3945