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Michael: 2006 results gave us wake-up call

Williams technical director Sam Michael believes his team are in a better shape now because of last year's troubled campaign than if they had had a trouble-free year

The Australian, who has overseen a restructuring of personnel at his team to help him focus more on car improvements, thinks that the disappointments of 2007 proved to be a wake-up call that major changes were needed at the team.

"I think last year was probably good in some ways," said Michael, who saw several good results slip through his team's hands because of poor reliability.

"If we had been reliable then we would probably have finished fifth in the championship and we would probably have turned around and said: 'Let's try just a little bit harder and try and get just a little bit more out of it.' And we would probably not have done as much.

"But the year was so bad, we thought: 'That is it. We need to tear it up, start again, and rebuild the structure.'"

As well as a revamp of Williams' technical department - with the arrival of chief designer Ed Wood; senior systems engineer John Russell; and head of aerodynamics Jon Tomlinson - the team have secured the services of Fernando Alonso's former race engineer Rod Nelson, who steps into the role of chief operations engineer to help oversee strategy at races.

Michael claims that the extra assistance has been a huge help for him personally.

"It has made a massive difference really, because it means that you are not running around trying to do everything. I think that will pay big dividends in 2007.

"I will still spend a lot of time at the track, but it means I can step away from the track at any time to make sure that things are going well at the factory. That is really what every other technical director does.

"A lot of that came about because I went from chief operations engineer to technical director, and we didn't immediately replace that role. But it really came home to me this year, we went to China and Japan and I was away from the factory for 12 days.

"As a technical director you cannot do that. We already had made the decision before then, so it is going to help me a lot."

When asked whether he believed that last year's form was evidence of a decline in Williams or whether it was just a temporary dip, Michael said: "We definitely had a decline over 2005, but it was the end of the BMW era and they were concentrating on setting their own team up.

"Then we had a year on Cosworth and a change to Bridgestone, and at the same time as that we basically shut all our wind tunnels down and built a new one. So all those things together made a massive impact on the car performance.

"But I think that now we have basically got all the stuff right. We have spent a lot of time on that. It has been very difficult with a lot of pressure from outside, but we have had to concentrate on it long term and we will wait and see what happens this year.

"We have definitely had a good turnaround over the winter but ultimately it doesn't matter what we talk about here. What matters is at the track and how fast we go."

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