Formula One news
Former BMW chief writes off Williams until mid-season
13 March 2004 |
| Berger retired from BMW last year |
Gerhard Berger has predicted that the Williams cars of Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher will not be able to beat world champions Ferrari until the middle of the season. "I don't think Williams will be able to close the gap on Ferrari in the first half of the season because it was really big," said Berger, former motorsport boss of Williams' partners BMW.
"The team was really happy before the season with the balance and performance of the car, so I don't see they have any major problems with it."
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| Williams went for innovative design |
"They just need to do development work. And development work usually takes a bit of time. So I don't see a big change in the next races apart from maybe the influence of heat and the tyres. "And then we will see - maybe from mid-season on we are going to see a strong competition," Berger told BBC radio.
Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello took Ferrari to a one-two triumph at the season-opener in Australia last week leading to fears that the Italian giants are set for another dominant campaign. Williams and Ferrari's other rivals hope that their Michelin tyres will be better suited to the heat of the next race in Malaysia than Ferrari's Bridgestones, as has been the case in the last two years.
However, Williams driver Ralf Schumacher is cautious about his team's chances of turning the tables on Ferrari in Kuala Lumpur. "Melbourne showed there is still quite a lot of work ahead of us if we want to fight for the world championship this year," said the German. "Even if we can't close the gap to Ferrari straight away, we must do better in Malaysia."
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