British GP Friday Williams notes

BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers Jenson Button and Ralf Schumacher were 11th and 15th quickest respectively in the first free practice sessions for the British Grand Prix. Hard showers that severely compromised track time hampered both the sessions. Due to a problem in the morning session Ralf couldn't achieve any timed lap.

Jenson Button
Best Position: 11th
Chassis: FW22 04
Best Time: 1:27.775
"It's good to be on my home circuit and I am sure this will help me. I know the track reasonably well from Formula Three races and from our testing. It's quite difficult to get used to such changeable weather and track conditions. I don't think that I have ever driven in such a terrible environment."

Ralf Schumacher
Best Position: 15th
T-car Chassis: FW22 02
Best Time: 1:30.593
"Unfortunately my car stopped in the first session and I couldn't even complete one timed lap. At the beginning of the second session half of the track was quite dry which didn't help us in our set up work. Then, at the end of the free practice it was raining so hard that, over the two hours, I only managed 14 timed laps."

Patrick Head (Technical Director, WilliamsF1)
"It is obviously difficult to gain anything particularly useful out of a day such as this. The changeable weather and consequent track conditions have been very difficult to work with, but it has been the same for everybody. Luckily, we tested here last week and therefore it's not as significant as it would have been otherwise."

Dr. Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director)
"We expected the weather to be like this during the Easter weekend. This could be considered a training session for the race itself. Overall, the conditions today were too variable to make any reasonable statement about the performance of the car and the engine."