 Williams Lick Wounds after Engine Failures Monday June 10th, 2002 By Alan Baldwin Williams and engine suppliers BMW launched a post-mortem on Sunday after a Canadian Grand Prix that began so brightly ended in disappointment. "We had more problems on the cars during the race than we had so far this season altogether," said BMW motorsport director Mario Theissen. "We will analyse the reason of Juan's engine failure in Munich (BMW's headquarters) as well as Ralf's, whose car stopped right after the finish line." Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya had started on pole and, after two pitstops, was in second place and putting pressure on Ferrari's Michael Schumacher when his car's engine expired with 13 of the 70 laps remaining. It was the second race in a row that Montoya was sidelined by a blown engine. He also started on pole in Monaco two weeks ago but failed to finish that race when the engine went. "The fact is that we had two engine failures today and that cost us important points," said BMW's Gerhard Berger. "Ferrari also had an engine failure today but their timing was better." Although Montoya remained second overall in the Championship with teammate Ralf Schumacher, winner here last year, the failure allowed Michael Schumacher to pull 43 points clear overall. Perfect Start Michael Schumacher's spare car had an engine blow in the morning warm-up but his race car ran impeccably as did Montoya's for most of the contest. "Everything looked perfect in the race - the car, the tyres, the strategy," said Montoya. "I was closing the gap to Michael and with 13 laps to go I was catching him quickly and as we saw he was struggling at the end of the race. "Suddenly I felt a loss of power and that was it. We did everything right but today was not for us." Ralf's engine also went after the finish but his hopes were already destroyed by a nightmare pitstop in which a problem with the refuelling rig was compounded by confusion. Technical director Patrick Head said the German's fuel rig began to deliver fuel and then stopped. "What shut it down I don't know but obviously we're going through that now to try and see exactly what it could be. "They decoupled the rig and went for Juan Pablo's, but because Juan wasn't due in for 10 more laps that was programmed to deliver much less fuel. I think in the scramble to change the rigs...somebody fell over in the rush and that closed the safety valve down," added Head. "So they put Juan's rig on and it didn't feed so they sent him (Ralf) out again and he had to come in again the next lap. The initial problem was a rig not working and then it was compounded by further problems and it completely stuffed Ralf's race. "I'm not sure that he would have been able to take the race to Michael but he was certainly well ahead of David (Coulthard) and certainly would have finished second. We've got to find out what the problem was."
Published at 00:34:19 GMT
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