FW: BMW WilliamsF1 Team - Spanish GP - Qualifying

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From: BMW WilliamsF1 Team <HHientzsch@aol.com>
To: Judy Stropus <jstropus@earthlink.net>
Subject: BMW WilliamsF1 Team - Spanish GP - Qualifying
Date: Sat, Apr 27, 2002, 9:55 AM


Spanish Grand Prix - QUALIFYING                      27th  April 2002

Weather: 21ƒC Air, 21ƒC Track

Both the drivers of the BMW WilliamsF1 Team, Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo
Montoya will start from the second row of the grid for tomorrow's Spanish
Grand Prix. After solid work from the team, both drivers benefited from
improvements in their cars after yesterday's free practice sessions to
dramatically improve their times.


Ralf Schumacher:          3rd
Chassis:  FW24 04
Best time: 1.17:277
"Yesterday we didnít expect to be where we are today, even if we looked
maybe worse than how we actually were, because we were working towards the
race.  The team did a great job overnight, changing my car quite a lot,
which allowed us to improve sensibly. We are pretty happy with the Michelin
tyres and I think they look in good shape for tomorrow. It is also positive
that Juan Pablo and myself are so close even if we are still too far away
from Ferrari. Starting from these grid positions we can aim for points and
possibly for a podium."

Juan Pablo Montoya:       4th
Chassis: FW24 05 (T-Car FW24 02)
Best time: 1.17:425
"If I think how qualifying started for me, I am absolutely happy with
position four. Straight after leaving the garage for the first time I
noticed an engine misfire and I had to switch to the T-Car. At the
beginning it did not go too well with the spare car, but on my last lap I
managed to put the best possible lap together. I don't know how it worked,
but it definitely did!"

Sam Michael (Chief Operations Engineer, WilliamsF1):
"We are right behind the Ferraris, which was our realistic target for this
circuit. The engineers and the drivers did a good job on the set-up to get
both cars on the second row. This was a good effort from the whole team. We
have some improvements for this race and they are working well but we are
still focussing on the gap to Ferrari. Now we are looking forward to
tomorrow when we believe we can have a competitive race."

Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director):
"We are very pleased to have both cars on the second row. Juan Pablo
radioed that he had a misfire. There was no reason for this that we could
see immediately on the data but instead of wasting any time we decided to
switch to the T-Car. We had to focus on giving Juan the opportunity of
three qualifying runs. Given these circumstances he did a brilliant job.
For Ralf everything went according to plan and he too did a good job."

Current pictures for downloading at www.press.bmw.com