BMW WilliamsF1 Team-European GP-Race

European Grand Prix - RACE
23rd June 2002

Weather: dry, sunny 21°C Air, 29°C Track

After a strong qualifying performance the BMW WilliamsF1 Team could not
benefit from their grid positions due to handling problems. Ralf Schumacher
scored three more points by finishing in fourth position but Juan Pablo
Montoya spun off hitting David Coulthard in the process.

Ralf Schumacher:             4th
Chassis:  FW24 06
Fastest Lap: 1:33,856 on lap 49 (5th overall)
"On one side I am disappointed with position four, on the other side I must
confess that we knew we were going to have a very hard race against Ferrari.
I had a good start and passed Juan on the first corner because I started on
new tyres. Unfortunately I couldn¹t stay in the lead for very long. Ferrari
is simply extremely strong in the race, at present. My car was incredibly
difficult to drive as we had some tyre problems from early in the race. I
must say though that this doesn¹t depend on Michelin, but on us getting the
car right for the tyres."

Juan Pablo Montoya:       DNF (on lap 28 in 4th position)
Chassis: FW24 05
Fastest Lap: 1:34,635 on lap 21 (11th overall)
"For the third time in a row I didn¹t finish the race after being on pole.
At the start I lost the lead to Ralf who passed me at the first hairpin. I
didn¹t try to protect my position and risk sending the two of us out of the
race. Then I was struggling massively with the handling of my car. The car
was almost undrivable but I still had some laps to go before my pit-stop.
Eventually I couldn¹t help spinning coming into the first corner and I
unfortunately hit Coulthard who was close behind me, putting an early end to
our race. When I came back to the paddock I apologised to David."

Sam Michael (Chief Operations Engineer, WilliamsF1):
"We had a poor performance today. We had a similar problem to the Monaco
race where we had extreme wear on the rear tyres of both cars. We had to
pull Ralf¹s pit-stop forward by a long way but Juan didn¹t make it.
Unfortunately he took David Coulthard off and he apologised. We have a lot
of work to do and it¹s clear where our problem lies."

Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director):
"After such a strong qualifying with both our cars, we were obviously the
favourite team for this race. But already in the warm up the Ferrari cars
showed how extraordinarily quick they were with their race set-up. Both our
drivers were unhappy with the behaviour of their cars. On the engine side
there was no problems during the entire weekend. The measures we took after
the Monaco and the Canadian Grands Prix clearly paid off."

Barcelona Test: 25-28 June (Marc Gené and Antonio Pizzonia all days)

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