 Williams Face Extra Homework to Catch Ferrari Monday April 15th, 2002 By Alan Baldwin Ferrari and Formula One World Champion Michael Schumacher look as likely to dominate this season as they did last year. To the dismay of his rivals, Schumacher moved 14 points clear in the title race by leading teammate Rubens Barrichello to a Ferrari one-two in Sunday's San Marino Grand Prix for his third win in four races. The German, who had two wins at the same stage last year but won the title with four Grands Prix to spare, left younger brother Ralf behind in his Williams as Ferrari celebrated a crushing win at their home circuit. Ralf was third, his Colombian teammate Juan Pablo Montoya fourth while McLaren's David Coulthard was lapped by Schumacher before finishing sixth. On current form it is hard to bet against Schumacher taking a fifth title to equal Juan-Manuel Fangio's record. "We were obviously well beaten and we've got to understand why and put it right," said Williams technical director Patrick Head afterwards. "Certainly Ralf said his car was good, well-balanced throughout the race, good brakes. And I think the strategy was pretty much what all the other front runners did, so ultimately it comes down to the fact that we just weren't quick enough. "We've got some homework to do, simple as that." The one-two also allowed Ferrari to regain their lead in the constructor's rankings from Williams by three points. McLaren are well adrift of both, 28 behind Williams, and fighting to stay ahead of Renault. Step Up Both Ferrari drivers used the new F2002, after only Schumacher used it in the last race in Brazil, and Head said it was clearly a step up. "Maybe we had a similar performance to their 2001 car at the beginning of the year and their 2002 car has stepped the act up by three quarters of a second or so," he said. "We've got to be able to do the same sort of thing. "You'd have to say they looked pretty strong today ... there have been four races this year and Michael's won three of them. Not many chinks in that (armour) really. "I'd say Ferrari look pretty strong and I'm not expecting us to make an enormous improvement in the next short time that we have before Barcelona," he added. "But in this business you never give up, you fight right the way to the end and you never know what's going to happen. It's not a very predictable business. Ferrari are undoubtedly the class act out there at the moment and they are quite tough to beat." Ralf, who took second place at the first corner and lost it in his first pit stop, admitted he was both disappointed and depressed by the outcome. "Certainly we are," said last year's race winner. "We went to the last two races with the impression we could win them, we failed twice. So why should we be happy about it?" "I think our car was good, the team did a great job and we did the best with what we had. But it certainly looks like it is not good enough so we have to improve if we want to win races in the next few weeks." The big disappointment was Montoya, largely anonymous after taking the fight to Schumacher since the start of the season and banging cars with him in the last two races. But Head explained that a technical miscalculation had effectively ended his chances before the start. "He had understeer when he came to the line but he and his engineer judged... that when the tyres cleaned up it would improve. "It didn't. And you can imagine that driving a car that understeers is not Juan Pablo's cup of tea because all you can do is just sit there and wait before the front bites and you can get on the throttle. "He just wasn't able to drive an attacking race."
Published at 08:35:56 GMT
| ||||||
(03-16-2005): 
