Sam Michael: We're still pushing

The past few weeks have been difficult for BMW Williams, with the Montreal disqualifications followed by Ralf Schumacher's accident at Indy, and then generally disappointing outings in France and Britain.

While Juan Pablo Montoya finished a respectable fifth at Hockenheim, it was another frustrating afternoon for the team. A year earlier the Colombian had totally dominated the race, but this time around that stunning performance was just a distant memory. After qualifying second Montoya made a bad start, and then didn't really have the pace to recover to any great extent.

"When the lights went out his clutch didn't engage quick enough," says Michael, "and he had a lot of delay time while the clutch started to bite. When it did bite he had wheelspin, probably more than normal. But the main loss was in the delay time in getting the car moving.

"It's normal for rear tyres to be on the limit - it's the normal thing for Hockenheim. I'm sure that everyone had the same problems. On Juan's second stop and third stop we came in a little bit early because of that. The main stop that we changed was the second one."

At one stage it looked like he might catch Fernando Alonso and David Coulthard, but in the end he didn't manage it.

"Alonso had a problem and then sorted his problem out, and came back with some strong lap times. He was only going to get them if Alonso had a big problem."

While Michael was pleased to see Antonio Pizzonia bring the sister car home a safe seventh, he was nevertheless frustrated by the Brazilian's disappointing qualifying performance. He didn't see his lack of experience as any excuse.

"Not really, because he did that 10 times before last year. This year it should be even better, because you have a run just before the qualifying. Last year you had two hours out of the car. I think he just didn't get the best out of the car."

Life has been made harder for all the Michelin runners this year by the consistent good form of BAR, and now that McLaren is back on the pace, Williams may struggle to challenge for podiums over the remaining six races.

"Kimi and Jenson were very quick. Jenson, if you look at where he came from, did a fantastic race to come second, and I'm sure Kimi would have pushed Michael to the end as well. David scored some points, which were very damaging to us. We have to keep the pressure on so we don't fall behind McLaren.

"They've taken a big step compared to everyone else. It's a package they've been working on for a long time, obviously. If you look at the developments we're bringing to the car, if we weren't bringing those, we'd definitely be slipping back. We just qualified on the front row, so the car is obviously improving."

Montoya has complained all year about the relative lack of progress made by his team. The summer testing ban won't help, but Sam insists that the team hasn't given up on the FW26.

"We'll work hard on bringing more improvements again to the car for Budapest for the starts, and also aero and mechanical parts. We just have to keep bring more performance as much as we can."

The chopping and changing in the second car doesn't help. Michael admits that he would like to see Ralf back for Hungary.

"Sure. If he passes the doctors' tests, then it's good that he comes back. Obviously his input and set-up direction is valuable. Ralf's a normal race driver and he has six or seven years of F1 experience [this is actually his eighth!], so it's natural that you'll miss that."