Belgian GP: Williams Saturday notes

The BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers will start tomorrow's 2002 Belgian Grand Prix from the second and third row respectively with Ralf Schumacher 4th and Juan Pablo Montoya 5th on the grid.

Ralf Schumacher

"Our weekend hasn't been too positive so far. It has been no easy job for us to find the right balance for our car and to take the tyres to the right temperatures quick enough. However I was quite satisfied at the end of qualifying. It won't be easy to beat the Ferraris or the McLarens in the race."

Juan Pablo Montoya

"Not at all the qualifying I expected here. I struggled with the car balance and could not improve as much as I was hoping. We tried a few things to see if we could find some more tenths but they were not enough. In my third attempt I was held up by Raikkonen's McLaren-Mercedes and lost some time there. I haven't qualified on the third row since Australia but still I like this track and I hope my race will be more satisfying than this qualifying."

Sam Michael (Chief Operations Engineer, WilliamsF1):

"It is obviously disappointing not to be the fastest Michelin car, regardless of the teams' compound choices. Michelin has brought two strong tyres here, evident by the number of Michelin runners in the top twelve. We have obviously lost some of our qualifying performance relative to the other Michelin runners and now we have some work to do for tomorrow's race set-up."

Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director):

"Apart from Michael Schumacher's outstanding performance the times of the drivers from second to sixth position are very close and McLaren have proved that we have to settle scores with them as well ! We didn't have any technical problems and both Ralf and Juan improved on their positions with each run. Starting from 4th and 5th positions is ok. As we all know at Spa, the race outcome can still depend on unstable weather conditions. However, we still hope we can achieve a podium position."

Ralf Schumacher: 4th
Chassis: FW24 06
Best time: 1.44,348 min

Juan Pablo Montoya: 5th
Chassis: FW24 04
Best time: 1.44,634 min

-williams-