26/09/2004
NEWS STORY
The BMW WilliamsF1 Team collected four valuable points in today's Premiere of the Chinese Grand Prix with Juan Pablo Montoya achieving fifth place. Ralf Schumacher could not reach the chequered flag due to an accident on lap 37.
Juan Pablo Montoya: My start wasn't too bad and I was able to pass Panis but then I went to the inside and it was so dirty that it was like stopping and everybody passed me back. I tried to regain my position and I overtook Jacques Villeneuve twice but I didn't have enough traction and he just passed me back. It was real fun! In the first part of the race I was stuck in traffic, but the second part was better. I was quite close to Sato but I made a mistake before the pit-stop and it cost me a little but then he made a mistake and I got him back. It's good to have achieved fifth position from where we started and I am glad to have collected some good points for the team.
Ralf Schumacher: It's a true pity that my race had an early end. My car had a puncture following contact with Coulthard. He tried to overtake me but I think his move was a bit too optimistic. Anyway, I came into the pits to fix the car which we thought had been damaged but after a careful look, the engineers decided that I could continue the race. However, too much time had elapsed by then and it was too late to get out on track again, because I would have been two laps down. It's a shame, because my race had been good until then and I had been fighting in the top five positions. It's true I had lost a place at the start, but all in all I was in a position to collect some useful points.
Sam Michael (Technical Director WilliamsF1): It was not a good day in terms of results. However, the car pace and strategy was not bad. At least Juan drove through the field and picked up some points. Juan had a good initial start but then had to avoid a Toyota and lost a few positions. On lap 37, Ralf had an incident with Coulthard which resulted in a puncture and caused him to pit. Unfortunately we were expecting Juan Pablo for his pit-stop. What happened between Ralf and Coulthard was a racing incident and unfortunately it resulted in Ralf's car not scoring points. In terms of reliability, we had no problems.
Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director): It was a successful Premiere in China but the race result doesn't match our expectations. Both our drivers lost some positions at the start and were held back in the first part of the race. This cost Ralf the chance of fighting in the top positions. After the collision with David Coulthard, Ralf came into the pit right before Juan's second stop. Since we didn't know that his car had been damaged, we refuelled and changed tyres to Juan's car first, as scheduled, but when it became clear that Ralf had only a puncture, it was too late to send him out again. Anyway, Juan collected four good points for the team today.