BMW WilliamsF1 Team Speed Challenge

24 July 2002

BMW WilliamsF1 Team Speed Challenge in Silverstone

Speed made visible

Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya at Silverstone today with BMW


Silverstone/Munich. In the brief interval between the French and German
Grands Prix, the
Formula One drivers of the BMW WilliamsF1 Team found time for an event of a
rather
special kind. On Wednesday, Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher took part
in the
BMW WilliamsF1 Team Speed Challenge on the short track at the Silverstone
circuit. The
aim was to make speed visible.

Four BMW vehicles with different performance levels set off in sequence,
starting with a
400 bhp BMW Z8 Roadster, then a BMW 320i from the European Touring Car
Championship, and thirdly a Formula BMW racing car – three fast cars with
professional
racing drivers at the wheel. After a long gap, the Formula One car finally
took to the track,
yet still managed to catch all the others up. In the showdown on the
finishing straight, the
enormous excess speed from more than 850 bhp and a weight of 600 kilograms
became
graphically evident.

In the days before lighters replaced matchboxes, photographers always
seized on this
ubiquitous accessory whenever they attempted to explain the relative size
of an object in a
picture. Similarly, speed can only be grasped in relative terms, though
obviously not
through a still image. That is how the idea of the BMW WilliamsF1 Team
Speed Challenge
was sparked.

“Even the television broadcasts of the races can’t really convey the speed
and
acceleration in Formula One,” explains Ralf Schumacher, “because you just
have cars of
more or less equal speed racing against each other. But in our Speed
Challenge we had
the perfect opportunity for a comparison.”

Mario Theissen, BMW Motorsport Director responsible for technology, was
also taken with
this demonstration. “Even for the experts, who know the performance data of
these four
cars by heart, it was pretty impressive. The real thing beats the theory any
day.”

At the BMW WilliamsF1 Team Speed Challenge at Silverstone, BMW works driver
Jörg
Müller (GER) manned the Formula BMW. Dutchman Tom Coronel was at the wheel
of the
BMW 320i from the European Touring Car Championship, and ex-Formula One
driver
Bruno Giacomelli (ITA) was racing the Z8. Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf
Schumacher
took it in turns to blast around the 2.6-kilometre Northamptonshire track
in the WilliamsF1
BMW FW24..

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