Head denies Ralf warning

Williams technical director Patrick Head has denied that Ralf Schumacher was sent a letter telling him he had to improve his performance, as reported by some media last week. Schumacher struggled with qualifying in Malaysia, ending up seventeenth on ...

Williams technical director Patrick Head has denied that Ralf Schumacher was sent a letter telling him he had to improve his performance, as reported by some media last week. Schumacher struggled with qualifying in Malaysia, ending up seventeenth on the grid, and it was alleged that Head had warned him to shape up after a disappointing first two races.

Ralf Schumacher.

Photo by Brousseau Photo.

Head conceded that he did send a letter to Schumacher but it was not about 'pulling his socks up': "No it's not true," he said at Interlagos. "I didn't go to Malaysia but I did send a letter to Ralf, in which I was merely talking about the support level that he has on the car and how to use it best. I said that I hoped the situation in Malaysia would allow him to have a better race than he had in Australia, but it was nothing to do with pulling his socks up."

"I wasn't in a position of wagging the finger at a driver. The requirement was for us to improve our car but Ralf wasn't too pleased with his qualifying and some of the problems he had in Australia and I am very pleased to see that he has had a solid qualifying here. I think he thinks that he could have pulled another few tenths out of the lap, but it is better to be sixth than 17th, which he was in Malaysia. I just told him that the steering wheel was for the correcting of the car's oversteer!"

"Everybody has got me down as being a thoroughly aggressive person who goes around telling drivers how they should do their job. Anyway, I am of the view that it is up to us to improve the car but we are on a slope of achieving that, so it is all part of working together to make the package stronger."

Schumacher outqualified team mate Juan Pablo Montoya in Brazil, the Colombian ninth. "I had too much understeer in some sectors of the circuit and I think I lost two or three tenths there," Schumacher said after qualifying. I was also a bit too careful braking into turns seven and eight. "However, all in all I am quite happy."