Villeneuve vows to help BMW

Villeneuve, who won the Formula One World Championship in 1997 with Williams, joined Sauber a year ago on a two-year contract, but his initial phase in the team was somewhat sluggish.

After BMW bought out Sauber, the German carmaker confirmed they will retain Villeneuve for 2006, and the Canadian said today he has no doubt things will only get better.

"This is great," Villeneuve said on stage at Valencia, in the BMW Sauber F1 launch. "The team is an evolution of what was in place last year - all the engineering staff at the race track was already in place and everything has been incremented.

"But BMW has brought professional people in, there is more testing and more wind-tunnel work, and therefore more performance from the car."

Villeneuve said the new car, named F1.06, should also be an improvement from last year's C24, but he was cautious not to make any predictions.

"It will be better than last year," he said. "It is impossible to know exactly where we stand right now, because everyone is testing in different configurations - some with V8, some with restricted V10 - so it is difficult to judge where we are at the moment.

And the Canadian, who was involved in the establishing of the BAR team in 1999, said he was motivated and promised to do his best for BMW in its first year as a constructor.

"Building up a new team is a very complex task", Villeneuve said. "I've already been through it in the past. But I think we've got a number of good prerequisites coming together here. I'll be doing my very best to help the BMW Sauber F1 Team achieve success.

"We are all definitely fired up. You see it in how everybody is working - everyone is positive and wants it to be good."