Juan Pablo Montoya

These past few weeks have been extremely tough for the Williams organisation. Things appeared to be on the up when Ralf Schumacher took pole and led in Montreal, but the exclusion of both cars after the race signalled the start of a disappointing run.

Ralf's accident and the disqualification of Montoya in Indianapolis have been followed by a couple of races where the team was just a bit player, the return to form of McLaren having made life even more difficult.

Supersub Marc Gene was never in the hunt at Silverstone, and while Montoya eventually salvaged fifth place - a respectable result in a race of such low attrition - it wasn't really want either the team or BMW were after.

Ralf is still on the sidelines, so Antonio Pizzonia steps into the hot seat for Hockenheim and presumably beyond. This will surely be the only chance he'll get to redeem himself after his disastrous time at Jaguar. With Sir Frank busy with the ongoing debate about who will drive next year, these are hectic times in Grove.

After his disappointing afternoon at Silverstone, Montoya could only shrug his shoulders, and suggest once more that the team has not kept pace with development.

"It was good, but just not quick enough for me," he rues. "In the slow corners I was just losing so much time with traction, and I think that was the biggest problem with the car. I just tried to keep up with them. I made a mistake at the start and just dropped the clutch too fast, and it cost me a little bit. I did what I could with what I had. I got some more useful points for the team.

"It was a shame. The car was pretty tricky to drive. I nearly crashed, the same as Trulli, I lost the rear through Bridge. I was very lucky to keep it under control.

"The traffic was disappointing, especially Heidfeld. Before the restart I asked them to go to Jordan and tell them, 'Here I come.' First thing that happens is that as we're going through the last corner he backs off, and I lost five car lengths just because of him. It was very disappointing to see somebody like that."

The hard fact is that, whatever the details, Silverstone marked an uncomfortable anniversary. Had someone suggested after Juan's success in Germany last year that Williams would return 12 months later without having scored another win, who would have believed them? Admittedly only Renault has beaten Ferrari in that time, but nevertheless it's an incredible statistic.

"It's incredible, but not a surprise, put it that way," says Juan Pablo. "The team is working hard, but if there's no progress made, there's no development. If there's nothing, you're just not going to go fast enough. The new aero package put us a bit at the level of BAR, maybe a little bit slower than them, but not by much. But we're not any quicker."

One could speculate that the loss of Ralf has not helped, not just because of the obvious continuity that he brings, but also because he has always provided Montoya with the ultimate in motivation. However, Juan says his temporary team-mate could not have done any more.

"I think it's not up to Marc. I think it's up to the aero department and the team to really get their act together."

Technical director Sam Michael was keen to point out at Montreal that the team's apparent return to form was related more to the low downforce nature of the track than any spectacular inherent improvement in the car.

That suggests that Monza might be good, but don't expect any miracles at Hockenheim, where traction is quite important. So what then of BMW's home race, where the Williams has clearly been very fast in recent years? Montoya doesn't seem too excited: "I think it will be the same thing..."