BMW motivated to develop

BMW motorsport director Dr. Mario Theissen thinks Ferrari's dominant performance in the San Marino Grand Prix has motivated BMW to work even harder to be ready for Spain. Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya is not one particularly suited to the Williams team but Theissen believes they are prepared.

"With their new car, Ferrari has raised the benchmark and by doing so they have motivated us even more to push our development programme further," he said. "We have prepared ourselves well for the next race with a two car test at Silverstone supplemented by work on the dynos in Munich."

"Even though Barcelona is not one of the circuits we have especially high hopes for, I regard us as being well prepared for what is coming later this season. We are more than happy with the result of the first four races. The fact that we are fighting Ferrari in the championship is more than we expected."

Theissen is pleased with the reliability of BMW's V10 engine this year -- Williams are second to Ferrari in the Contructors' standings so far and have only had one race retirement, which was from accident rather than engine failure.

"We are happy to be the most reliable team so far this season," the BMW boss commented. "Nobody has recorded more race laps than our drivers and the only competitive distance we have not completed this season was as a result of Ralf's (Schumacher) accident in Australia. So early in a season, this degree of reliability is pleasing."