Head Plays Down Williams Meeting

Williams-BMW boss Patrick Head rubbished suggestions that the team had held a crisis meeting ahead of this weekend's Austrian Grand Prix and insisted they can come back to fight for the Championship this season.

The Grove-based outfit finished runners up in the title race last year but are now fourth in the Championship after a disappointing start to the 2003 season with their new FW25 car. Both drivers - Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher - attended a meeting at the team's headquarters on Wednesday but Head insisted it was just business as usual.

"We have operational meetings before and after every Grand Prix and it was just one of them," Head told Atlas F1. "The drivers are invited to attend every meeting and it just happened that they turned up this time."

Williams have struggled with strategic errors and fuel rig problems this season and while Ralf Schumacher has finished in the points at every race the team's only podium finish was Montoya's second place in Australia.

Since then Renault have come on strong with young Fernando Alonso taking the fight to Ferrari in Barcelona and Williams have dropped behind McLaren-Mercedes, Ferrari and the French team in the title race.

But Head is confident they can come back and he said: "We will improve. The new car is very compact and has great potential. I am confident it will get better and better and we are still not too far off the Championship leaders."