Williams Kyalami test final day

The BMW WilliamsF1 Team left Kyalami today after a productive week of testing in preparation for the season's opening race in Melbourne. Both Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya have been on duty over the past six days in two FW23s. The comprehensive programme was successfully completed and has resulted in the generation of valuable data about the new car and new engine combination - just reward for engineers and mechanics after six long days and nights of hard work.

Ralf Schumacher
"I ran the Melbourne specification engine today because it was my last day in the car before the Australian Grand Prix. I worked on tyre construction tests this morning and then moved onto some longer runs. Heavy showers interrupted these runs and kept us in the garage for a while. The remainder of the session involved gearbox testing."

Juan Pablo Montoya
"I began the day with some tyre compound tests and then switched to race simulation work that involved long runs. This was prematurely halted due to an engine problem. I still have some work to do before my first Formula One race start and I will address this in Barcelona next week."

Sam Michael (WilliamsF1 Chief Operations Engineer)
"In total we have covered over 2700 km of mileage during this six day test. It was a very productive programme and we have learned a lot about the car and the tyres - especially their behaviour under hot conditions. BMW has also exploited this test well and have been rewarded with some very useful mileage in preparation for Melbourne. We are now looking forward to a couple of days in Barcelona next week with Juan Pablo. This will involve last minute checks before we head out to Australia."

Dr Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director)
"We tested some new components today on Ralf's car. These worked well but need a little fine-tuning. Ralf concentrated on compound testing and long engine runs, but the programme was slightly disturbed by an incident that involved a bird hitting and damaging the cooling system. We are satisfied with the performance of today's engine but not with the fact that it only managed 250km. Juan Pablo's planned mileage also suffered because of minor problems with the engine's periphery, such as fittings. This six-day test, however, has been very useful to us. Before Kyalami. we found solutions for several problems that occurred during the last test in Barcelona and they were all resolved - that's why we've managed a lot of mileage over six days in Kyalami. There is still some work to do around the periphery of the V10. such as cooling system, oil system and mapping. Subsequently, our engineers in Munich have already started work on these tasks."

-WilliamsF1