27/05/2005
NEWS STORY
It wasn't an easy start to the weekend for the BMW WilliamsF1 Team. Although Nick Heidfeld and Mark Webber were quite fast all day, they managed to achieve only a few laps in the second free practice session.
Nick Heidfeld: The start of the day was all right. I made some set-up changes and we were heading in the right direction. I was topping the time sheets for quite some time, which is nice, but it doesn't really matter much today. More importantly, both Mark and myself unfortunately weren't able to complete our scheduled programme, especially as far as the tyres are concerned, which will make it harder to make our tyre choice this time.
Mark Webber: Today was not ideal. We went through our programme in the morning session but we just concentrated on short runs. We had started work for the second session but, after only seven laps, I lost the car at the entrance of a corner and could not get back on track because I'd ended up in the gravel. That was the end of my day. I am sorry for the team but I am sure we'll get back tomorrow.
Sam Michael (Technical Director, WilliamsF1): Not as planned for the first day. On Nick's car we suffered a drive line failure, which we are investigating now, and Mark ended up in a gravel bed. We will check his car and data later on when the car is back in the garage. It is now going to be difficult for us to make our tyre choice, but, we have some data from the runs Nick did. Tonight we will work through this tyre data and the set up.
Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director): Both our drivers could not complete the scheduled programme today. Mark ended up in the gravel quite early and Nick had a problem with the drive line. The engineers will now have to do their tyre choice on the basis of the data they have collected. It's positive that the basic set-up was right from the beginning. Both the drivers were quick and both the engines ran without any problems.