Williams FW24 problems sorted out

The new Williams FW24 was a cause for some concern after early testing when the car came in for criticisim from both Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya, as well as BMW Motorsport director Gerhard Beger. All three were dissatisfied with the chassis and felt it would not be competitive enough but now Technical Director Patrick Head says the problems have been sorted out.

Despite being confident the teething problems with the car have been settled, which seems to be the case as Montoya broke the lap record at Valencia recently, Head was reluctant to speculate on the team's chances for the forthcoming season. He would rather wait and see how Schumacher and Montoya perform in the first few races before predictinig how the rest of the season will go.

"Certainly when we first ran the FW24 we weren't very happy with its initial performance," he said, "and Ralf was a bit disappointed as well. But since then we have identified the cause of the problem and progressively improved. By the time we get to Australia I hope we will be in a very competitive state. But we'll have to wait and see when we get there. I learned a long time ago that you don't talk up the season because you could get caught out. You wait and see what happens and then talk it up once the results start coming."