Cosworth motivated by Williams partnership

Williams recently confirmed that it will run with Cosworth engines next year and the supplier is eagerly anticipating the challenge ahead. Cosworth currently provides engines for Red Bull and Minardi and will continue with Minardi next year, while Red Bull will be Ferrari powered. Williams will split with BMW at the end of this season and picked Cosworth to be its new partner, for 2006 at least.

"It's tremendously motivational," Cosworth CEO Tim Routsis said about the Williams partnership. "I've been very pleased and I have to say a little bit surprised with the speed with which the whole organisation has really engaged."

"I don't think we're under any illusions about the nature of the challenge next year but there's no doubt at all that everybody is really looking forward to this."

Although Cosworth will supply Minardi in 2006, the Faenza squad will run a restricted V10 while Williams will have exclusive use of the V8. "Could we have done two teams?" Routsis said in regard to the V8. "I really wouldn't have wanted to do that."

"The challenge in developing the V8 is one which will really be best achieved if we can do it in close collaboration with one particular team and that will be Williams."

The V8 is provisionally scheduled for its first run in a car in October. Cosworth won't simply supply Williams with engines; the two will collaborate on the design and development of the entire drivetrain. It helps that Cosworth and Williams' headquarters are less than forty miles apart.

"There were a few choices; we were offered an engine by BMW but we felt we needed a fresh start and that Cosworth would be a good home," said team principal Frank Williams.

"The culture is truly the same. They have something to prove, we have a lot to prove too, and the geography makes things very, very convenient and that's very useful, I must say."

Speculation suggests that Williams will run on Cosworth power for just the one season before switching to a long-term partnership with Toyota from 2007. Toyota currently supplies Jordan and is already committed to the team for next year and did not believe it had the production capacity to supply a third team for 2006.