No Deadline for Williams Deal, Says BMW Boss

BMW have set no deadline to negotiations with Williams over a new Formula One deal, the German carmaker's motorsport director Mario Theissen said at the Austrian Grand Prix.

BMW's current engine partnership with the former championship-winning team expires at the end of next year and the two sides have been negotiating for months over a new agreement.

Theissen told reporters that BMW had ruled out quitting the sport and had three other options: to go it alone, to forge another alliance or to renew the deal with Williams. He said the latter was the most likely and progress was being made after intense discussions.

"It is constructive, we are trying to come to a joint view of how the future team should be structured, should be organised, should be run and what resources it would take in order to get to the top," he said.

"These are basically the main issues we are talking about because when extending the partnership both of us have to do it in a way that we can win the Championship."

Theissen said that the probability of coming to a joint agreement with Williams was greater than that of failure.

He said there was deliberately no deadline: "We thought we should have it done by the start of the season but when discussions went into detail we found out how complex the issues are to really link all the operations together."

Williams are under pressure from BMW after making a disappointing start to the season. They are fourth in the Constructors' Championship and have not won a race since Malaysia in March last year.