US GP: Williams Friday practice notes

The BMW WilliamsF1 Team had productive Free Practice sessions on an eventful first day of the USA Grand Prix, with Juan Pablo Montoya and team-mate Ralf Schumacher being 3rd and 6th fastest respectively. WilliamsF1 is also celebrating the 100th race with Petrobras fuel this weekend, the result of a productive and strong partnership with the Brazilian Company.

Juan Pablo Montoya:

"I am reasonably satisfied with the performance of my car today, even if we have still quite a lot of work ahead of us, before we can say we are ready for tomorrow's qualifying and Sunday's race. It's too early to say where we really stand in relation to the competition. I evaluated the type of tyres that Michelin brought here and they seem to be both good, but before making our choice we need to have a careful look at the data."

Ralf Schumacher:

"All in all I can be very happy with today's performance even if driving was fairly difficult due to the fact the track is still quite slippery. I finished my tyre evaluation and collected some useful data. There is still some work to do, but I am pretty confident about the weekend ahead."

Sam Michael (Technical Director, WilliamsF1):

"We have had a productive day, spending the time looking at the race set-up. We did not have any reliability problems and we have good information to make our tyre choice. Tonight we will put a lot of effort in tothe set-up work for tomorrow's qualifying and also for the race."

Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director):

"Friday is the day when we do our set-up and tyre-evaluation work. Both the drivers completed their programmes without any problems. In today's Free Practice sessions we collected sufficient data to continue our weekend preparations."

Juan Pablo Montoya
Chassis: FW26 06
(Spare car FW26 03)
Practice session 1: 4th, 1:12.008
Practice session 2: 3rd, 1:10.982

Ralf Schumacher
Chassis: FW26 07
Practice session 1: 10th, 1:12.850
Practice session 2: 6th, 1:11.530

-williams-