Williams mulls over Pizzonia test role
After his disappointing experience at Jaguar earlier this year, former Williams test driver Antonio Pizzonia is still in with a chance of returning to his former role with the constructors' championship-chasing team
Williams used Pizzonia again in its recent Jerez test and Patrick Head explained at Suzuka: "We ran a four-day test there where most of the year we've done three. Ralf Schumacher is perfectly keen to test if we've got major things to try but he isn't very keen on running around to see if our gears stay together.
"Ralf also had a very big bump a month ago at Monza in testing and it seemed reasonable to ask him to do no more than two days in Spain, with Marc Gene doing the four days in the other car.
"Antonio was at Indy and we'd raised the subject beforehand. I checked with his manager, Jaime Brito, that he hadn't been lying on a beach downing Caipirinhas but he said no, he'd lost more weight and was in good form. So we asked him to come down and do two days for us.
"He did a thoroughly professional job and was just as consistent and fast as when he tested us before. We have no reason or evidence to suggest he is any slower than he was or anything other than a fully competitive F1 driver. I can't really make any comment about what happened with him at Jaguar because I don't know any details. But there's no decision about him returning to us in a test role just yet."
Asked what their knowledge of Pizzonia made them think of Mark Webber, substantially quicker than the Brazilian at Jaguar, Head replied: "I certainly think Mark is a very fast driver and one has to assume he's outstanding. But then Justin Wilson beat him to a championship in F3000... One has to draw one's conclusions from these things."
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