Williams performance upturn here to stay

The team has struggled to be as competitive as McLaren and Ferrari in the opening races of the season but at Monaco, Juan Pablo Montoya scored his second F1 career victory and team-mate Ralf Schumacher took pole position.

"Monte Carlo is all about chassis performance; aerodynamics and mechanical grip, and the result is a very good vote for the car," said Michael. "For Montreal we are very confident. We have had a very good slope of aero performance since Melbourne, we've got new bits for Montreal, bits for the Nurburgring that are coming, and it all adds performance to the FW25.

"We have had quite a big change of philosophy on the car since last year, especially the wheelbase," he added. "We knew that it would take time to sort out the mechanical set-up, but we made progress here in Monaco. We made a massive step forward - really fundamental things that won't just be good at Monaco, but everywhere."

Michael also pointed out that many of the current technical team at BMW Williams are relatively new to each other. "If you look at the people, I have only been at Williams for two and a half years, (aerodynamicist) Antonia Terzi has only been there for about 12 months, John Davis (R&D) for a few months and Frank Dernie arrived a few weeks ago," he said. "But, if you look at Ferrari, they have been together for seven or eight years, which is worth a massive amount. And if you look at McLaren, with men like Adrian Newey and Steve Hallam, we are just on the start of the curve. The whole business at this level is about how well people work together."