Pizzonia remains upbeat

of landing the Williams drive alongside Mark Webber this season have beenaffected by a series of mechanical problems during testing at Jerez this
week.

The Brazilian, who is vying with Heidfeld for the team's second race seat, saw his chances of matching his German rival's times evaporate when he suffered a series of engine and mechanical problems throughout his three-day run.

And although that left his lap times behind Heidfeld's best each day, Pizzonia is adamant that the team will take into account all the circumstances of the pair's tests before making a judgement, rather than simply judging it on the stopwatch.

"I am sure that Frank [Williams] knows exactly what he needs to see," Pizzonia told autosport.com. "I was never in the same conditions on the track as Nick, because there were times when I had mechanical problems and we were also on totally different testing programmes.

"On the final day of the test, for example, Nick had 14 sets of tyres for the whole day while I just had four. I am not worried about this at all because the Williams people know exactly what is going on."

Pizzonia and Heidfeld will resume their testing battle at Barcelona in Spain next week, with the team due to make their decision on who will partner Webber later this month.