04/07/2004
NEWS STORY
The BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Marc
Gené finished eighth and tenth respectively in today's French Grand Prix.
Juan Pablo Montoya: It has been a very difficult race for me, especially because of an intense pain in my neck, which nearly prevented me from being able to keep my head up. I hurt my neck on Friday, when I crashed, but I didn't expect the pain to become so sharp in the race. With regards to the race, I maintained my grid position at the start but after 20 laps or so hit a kerb too hard and spun, losing three places. After that I tried to close the gap with Kimi Raikkonen
in front, but I wasn't able to get close enough to pass him because I just wasn't quick enough. Also the balance of my car wasn't ideal, especially in the first part of the race, which caused me to make a few mistakes. I really hoped I could get much more than one single point today.
Marc Gené: Tenth place is not what I had hoped for. I had a problem with the clutch on the grid but since I didn't want to jump the start I released it very slowly and lost three positions. This is when I lost 50% of my chances to get good finish. Then Mark Webber and I touched on turn 3 and I nearly spun. Two of my sets of tyres were very good and allowed me to catch up with the drivers in front, like Mark Webber or Juan Pablo, but even though I tried my best, those in front were too fast. Both my car and I just needed more speed, today!
Sam Michael (Technical Director, WilliamsF1): Our pace in the race was disappointing today. We would have finished a little bit further up if Juan had not spun. It did cost us one or maybe two places, but even without this the result would not have been what we are aiming for. Since our race strategy, tyres and pit stops were fine, we obviously need to keep pushing to improve the pace of the car.
Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director): Juan lost some positions due to his spin and Marc lost three places in the heat of the start but drove a proper race afterward. A fifth and a seventh place would have been possible today and would have mirrored our performance over the rest of the weekend. Both drivers were not happy with the handling of the car. There wasn't a chance to do any proper testing of the new parts prior to this race weekend and it did not help either that set-up work on Friday was hampered by Juan's crash and bad weather. We need to exploit the full potential of this further developed package in the next races. Enginewise we didn't experience any problems during the weekend.