Head explains Ralf comments

Schumacher Jr was upset by the comments, attributed to Head and first published in the German media, suggesting that his crash at Parabolica in last year's Monza test in September, may have had a more sizeable affect on Ralf than first realised.

Head explained at Monaco: "This came out of a private conversation at an Allianz (a Williams sponsor) evening at Barcelona and I was talking to four British journalists and it was well understood that it was an off-the-record conversation. The subject was why Ralf was being out-qualified regularly by his team mate.

"We've had drivers before who have had big accidents: Nelson Piquet at Imola when he had a tyre explode (in 1987) and Thierry Boutsen as well, and they both said to me afterwards that when they were concussed it took them six to nine months to fully recover. In the private conversation, I speculated that maybe the accident at Monza, which was of our making - we had a bond failure in the suspension - had had some influence. But, it shows that actually, talking off the record is unwise and probably won't be repeated..."

It seems that there may also have been a German journalist in the direct vicinity, with good ears...