Theissen Pleased with Pizzonia's Performance

BMW motorsport director Mario Theissen declared himself content with the performance of Antonio Pizzonia after the Brazilian scored his first-ever points in Formula One with seventh place at the German Grand Prix.

Pizzonia, one of the Williams test drivers, was drafted in to replace the injured Ralf Schumacher at Hockenheim and produced a solid display to finish seventh after starting from 10th on the grid.

"The problem was his starting position," said Theissen. "He was a bit too cautious in qualifying as he didn't want to make a mistake and that put him back on the grid. From P10 on the grid he did a good race.

"Once he was slightly off the track but, other than that, no mistakes, he overtook three cars, had some good fights with quite quick guys and he did a solid race."

Pizzonia first became a Williams test driver in 2002, but raced for Jaguar last year before being dropped after 11 of the 16 races having failed to match the pace of Australian teammate Mark Webber.

He returned to Williams as a test driver this year and was handed a chance to make amends for his disappointing time at Jaguar when the team chose him to raplace Spanish test driver Marc Gene, who had stood in for Schumacher in France and Britain.

Gene failed to score points after disappointing performances in qualifying saw him start eighth and 13th in the two races and finish 10th and 12th respectively. Pizzonia will be hoping for the opportunity to replace Schumacher again if the German driver's injuries fail to clear up in time for the Hungarian Grand Prix on August 15.

But Theissen, who was pleased with performance improvements made to the team's car this weekend, said Williams will not make a decision on their second driver until one week before the Budapest race.