French GP Friday Williams notes

The BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers Jenson Button and Ralf Schumacher -- who is celebrating today his 25th birthday -- were 17th and 9th respectively in the first free practice sessions for the French Grand Prix.

Ralf Schumacher Chassis: FW22 02
T-Car Chassis: FW22 03
Best Time: 1:18.148
Position: 9th

"Generally I am happy with the car. We could make good use of last week's testing here in Magny-Cours. The car is still a little bit nervous at the rear in the entry to the corner but I'm sure that we can solve this problem before tomorrow's qualifying. We didn't use a new set of tyres at the end of the second session, in order to preserve them and be flexible for qualifying and Sunday's race."

Jenson Button
Chassis: FW22 04
Best Time: 1:18.969
Position: 17th

"We had quite a smooth day, just doing a lot of work for the race. We haven't really been able to get a correct set-up yet due to a few problems, but hopefully we'll get it tomorrow. At the end of the session I went out on new tyres but we couldn't exploit them to the best by collecting useful data as I couldn't get a clear lap."

Patrick Head (Technical Director, WilliamsF1)
"Both cars had a trouble free day. As every other team, we are extending the work that we've been doing at the test in order to work on race set-up. Tomorrow we will have to focus our attention much more to qualifying conditions."

Dr Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director)
"On the birthday of our older driver we managed to avoid any extra excitement, as both engines ran trouble-free. For qualifying and the race we feel we are standing in good stead."