Berger expects Williams battle

Like most people, Gerhard Berger is expecting an interesting fight on track this season and he predicts that the competition between Williams drivers Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya will be a fierce battle. The former BMW motorsport director expects this season's car to be in good shape from the first race at Melbourne in two weeks time.

"The WilliamsF1 BMW FW26 is looking promising and should be truly competitive from the outset in 2004," said Berger. "Ralf is getting better and better, and, if he can be consistent throughout the whole season, then he will be challenging for the Championship.

"Juan would love to be World Champion, but he can't afford to ignore Ralf. It will be a constant battle between the two of them throughout the season so I'm sure it's going to be a closely fought championship."

Williams completed a three-day test at Valencia this week, working on set up, traction control, systems and tyres, as well as race simulations in preparation for Australia.

"Just before bad weather hampered the test programme on Friday, the BMW P84 engine successfully completed another race simulation," said BMW's Mario Theissen.

"The engine specification used will be the one we have in Melbourne so we should be well prepared for the season's opener. Next week, we will spend the final, pre-season test in Imola fine tuning the P84."

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