Italian GP: Williams Friday notes

On a productive and trouble free day, the BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher were 5th and 7th respectively in the first Free Practice sessions of the 2002 Italian Grand Prix in Monza.

Juan Pablo Montoya:

"Overall I had good day. I am happy with the balance of the car, which gradually improved throughout the sessions. The tyres behaved well which is a very important factor on this circuit. I think this is going to be an interesting weekend for us, as we seem to be in quite a good shape on this track."

Ralf Schumacher:

"My practice session went quite well. There is still some work to do to optimise the car, but overall I am confident. A lot will depend on our tyre choice. This track is also hard on the brakes. Before the first chicane we brake down from around 350 km/h to approximately 70 km/h. For the drivers this is less extreme than it might appear from the outside. Now we are working on the set-up for qualifying."

Sam Michael (Chief Operations Engineer, WilliamsF1):

"It was a productive day in terms of working through some set-up changes, and doing our work for Sunday on the tyre choice. Michelin have brought two quite different tyres to Monza and the challenge will be to get the grip in qualifying. It appears that Ferrari still has a big advantage on everybody and we will be working overnight to minimise that. We did not have any mechanical failures."

Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director):

"As usual to interpret Friday's result means speculation. I just know that we do not run in qualifying conditions during these sessions. Both our drivers have completed their programme according to plan. The set up work for both the car and the engine was completed. We had no technical problems and feel confident for tomorrow's qualifying."

Juan Pablo Montoya: 5th
Chassis: FW24 05
Best time: 1.23,584 min

Ralf Schumacher: 7th
Chassis: FW24 06 (T-Car FW24 02)
Best time: 1.24,115 min

-williams-