British GP qualifying - BMW WilliamsF1 Team

British Grand Prix - QUALIFYING 14th July 2001

Weather:
Dry and sunny, but cold after a very wet morning practice. Air temperature 
15°C average. Track temperature 24°C average.

The BMW WilliamsF1 Team by its own admission had an uncompetitive day at 
Silverstone with Juan Pablo Montoya 8th and Ralf Schumacher 10th on the grid.

Juan Pablo Montoya 
Position: 8th 
Chassis: FW23 06 
T-Car FW23 02
Best Time: 1:22.219
"On the first run I hit a kerb on the exit of Becketts and bent a pushrod, so 
had to get into the T-Car that was set up for Ralf. We did a run and made a 
couple of adjustments and it worked out quite well. The car was good, for the 
start of the final run I managed to get by Jenson on the last corner and that 
really helped. I want to thank the guys on both my car and the T-Car for the 
great job they did for me today."

Ralf Schumacher 
Position: 10th 
Chassis: FW23 05
T-Car: FW23 02
Best Time: 1:22.283
"This qualifying did not go well for me. I did my best lap in my second stint 
and as everybody could see all the other drivers managed to improve at the 
end of the session. Unfortunately I didn't have the chance to do the same as 
I got stuck in traffic on my last run."

Patrick Head (Technical Director, WilliamsF1)
"We have to be honest and say generally it was a pretty poor qualifying 
performance. It has been a difficult day altogether, with the wet weather 
this morning when we were extremely uncompetitive during the whole of that 
running. Juan Pablo did a very good job of recovering and getting into the 
T-Car to improve on his time from the first run. We will be working hard to 
try and maximise our position for the race, but we are well away from being a 
competitive team here at Silverstone and we will have to look at that and try 
and understand why."

Dr. Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director)
"With this qualifying result we can't be happy. We have been aware in advance 
that we would not be among the fastest on this circuit and under these 
conditions. Furthermore we had difficulties, as Juan Pablo had to change to 
the T-Car, in which he did a remarkable time, and I am sure Ralf would have 
improved at the end without the traffic problem. We have had no engine 
problems this weekend."

Current high-resolution photographs may be downloaded from the BMW Press Club 
at www.press.bmwgroup.com (registration at any time).

Media contact:

WilliamsF1
Ann Bradshaw
ann.bradshaw@williamsf1.com
Tel: +44 79 772 75 838

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

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Sylvia Proudfoot
spur07@cs.com
403 287 3945