Button high on Williams hit list

When asked for his thoughts on Button, who drove for Williams in his rookie season in 2000, Head said: "As David Richards has been saying, Jenson has a fairly strong connection by contract with BAR. For a driver, there are two factors that you're after - to be in a competitive car and obviously the money aspect. If Jenson gets that at BAR then he'd have little reason for leaving. But we'd certainly regard Jenson as being very, very high on the list of candidates if he were available."

Many paddock insiders, including F1 ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone, have tipped Mark Webber to replace Montoya in 2005, when the Colombian moves to McLaren. Of Jaguar's Australian ace, Head commented: "He's driven some good races. If he were available then he would be a candidate."

Head also outlined exactly what Williams is looking for in a driver.

"We'll be looking for a driver who can step in and be competitive straight away, and who can handle the pressure of racing in a top-level Formula 1 team," he said. "Dealing with events on the track and working with the engineers is obviously part of that, but there's more to it as well, such as being able to bring down the shutters when it comes to PR and marketing work and not let that affect them. We'll be looking for someone who can come in and win straight away. The people we're thinking of aren't all necessarily under contract now."

Those "people", of course, include the man Montoya will replace at McLaren, Scotland's David Coulthard. Another Williams old boy, DC has been an enigma to Head in F1.

"David is an interesting one," said Head. "We decided not to continue with him at the end of 1995. He's a difficult guy to work out. When he's really good he's perfect. But then you think he'll go to the next race and be perfect again and instead he's quite ordinary.

"I've never managed to work out why that is. I sometimes wonder that he's an intelligent guy and he puts so much into it, that sometimes he might be a little too intense. But the fact is he's had seven opportunities in a pretty competitive car and he's been outperformed by Mika and then Kimi. That's the difficult one if he's looking for a job elsewhere in F1 - it'd be difficult for other people to commit to him."