Canadian GP Williams Friday notes

The BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers Jenson Button and Ralf Schumacher were 16th and 21st in the first free practice sessions for the Canadian Grand Prix. In the morning session Ralf unfortunately could run only two installation laps due to some technical problems, first related to the software and then to an irregularity in the oil system which meant that his car’s engine had to be changed as a precaution.

Jenson Button Best Position: 16th
Chassis: FW22 04
Best Time: 1:22.343
"I know our times don’t look too good but today we were trying our own ideas setting the car for tomorrow. The set up seems good, we are getting close to what we want. It’s my first time here and I think that the circuit is very good even if overtaking here will be quite difficult. The only passing could be at the hairpin and maybe at the end of the back straight. I was quite surprised at the start of free practice, as the surface was very slippery, but it got better and better."

Ralf Schumacher Best Position: 21st
Chassis: FW22 05
Best Time: 1:22.933
"The injured left leg causes sometimes a little bit of pain but I can stand it all the same. Therefore the race shouldn’t be a problem. At this moment I am not that happy with the set up of my car. We have too little grip. This is a track where normally no races are run and no test either therefore the tarmac is very dirty and slippery. We have still to improve both on the aerodynamic and mechanical sides therefore we have to analyse carefully the data in order to find a good solution for tomorrow’s set up and we must improve a lot."

Patrick Head (Technical Director, WilliamsF1)
"I don’t think that we are very happy with the performance of the car today, not really referring to the lap times but more to the comments from the drivers. We have quite a bit of homework to do tonight. I don’t think that slow corners are one of our strong points at the moment and they cause us an amount of trouble although I think there is potential to improve our performance quite a bit. I think we are strongest at the moment in medium and fast corners. We have also been doing a lot of homework, as this track is very demanding on brakes."

Dr Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director)
"In the first session Ralf’s engine suffered some irregularity problems with the oil system and therefore we changed it for precautionary reasons. Because of this we lost some set up work and now we have to catch up. "