San Marino GP Saturday Williams notes

Qualifying 8th April 2000

Weather: Sunny and warm. 25¼C average

Ralf Schumacher and Jenson Button will start from 5th and 18th positions respectively for the 2000 San Marino Grand Prix. Ralf today achieved his best qualifying position so far this season after experiencing a throttle control problem at the end of the morning session, which forced the team to change his car's engine. Jenson also struggled with some hydraulic problems during the free practice session which again prevented him from completing many laps in order to gain enough experience on the demanding Imola track.

Ralf Schumacher
Best Position: 5th
Chassis: FW22 03
Best Time: 1:24.805
"The Williams BMW was really perfect, we have a very good car and also BMW have improved in the right way. I must say that we didn't expect the fifth position in qualifying. I am quite optimistic for tomorrowâs race because usually the FW22 has performed better in the race than in qualifying trim."

Jenson Button
Best Position: 18th
Chassis: FW22 01
Best Time: 1:27.135
"Not really a good qualifying for me today. Both yesterday and today I have found it very difficult to get familiar with using the kerbs and I must say that I am still not really confident . This circuit is straight, narrow and very bumpy, which means that itâs very different from every other track on which I have driven in a F1 car so far. My lack of mileage due to problems that we had with my car didn't help, obviously."

Patrick Head (Technical Director WilliamsF1)
"We are very pleased with Ralf's performance after a difficult morning. Unfortunately we had some sort of failure I couldn't really comment exactly on what went wrong in his last run, whether it was engine or gearbox or something in that area. So Ralf was unable to get the opportunity to see if he could improve. For Jenson it has been a rather difficult race weekend altogether and although I thought that his first run looked quite strong relative to the lack of mileage he'd had this morning we failed to get a good enough improvement on it so he's quite a long way back. Anyway it's a long race tomorrow and now we will be concentrating on that. "

Gerhard Berger (BMW Motorsport Director)
"We are very happy, as newcomers, to start our third race from the third row on the grid. Such a good qualifying lap can come true only when everything works at its best: WilliamsF1 has prepared a very well set up car, we are working hard on the improvement of our engine and Ralf made all this work perfectly. Jenson hasn't still found the right rhythm here. Imola is a very difficult circuit to learn. To find the right braking points on this track you need a lot of experience. After having run a race distance, I am sure Jenson will feel more at home here. During the free practice we experienced some problems, which means that reliability is still the main target once again in the race."