Ralf patient for change

Michael, 33, former chief operations engineer for the Grove-based team, was promoted to the position earlier this week while former technical chief Patrick Head has moved into a wider role as director of engineering.

While the Australian will be given full responsibility for the design, development and deployment of the race cars with immediate effect, Ralf believes it will be some time before his influence will be felt.

"It will take Sam a while. I'm sure Sam will do great things within Williams but there's all the existing structure and things have to be changed," said Ralf ahead of this weekend's European GP. "The cars are still the same so you won't turn it around overnight. It will take at least three or four races until we see some slight changes, but the biggest change will certainly be next year."

Ralf believes it was a positive move for the team but would not reveal whether it will have any bearing on his own future plans. "It was definitely a very helpful step for the team which, hopefully, I'm sure he will prove and whether it has anything to do with my situation I'm not sure yet," he said. "That will take a while. I'm simply waiting to decide what I'm going to do. That's all I can say at the moment."

The German is at least certain that he will be racing in the sport next year though. "I would consider it quite sure that I will be in Formula One, so that's not a problem, but obviously not where and I will obviously try to be in the best position," he said. "Nothing is decided yet. We are still talking, certainly I'm still waiting for what is happening in our team and then I will see what the outcome is."