Williams rues pitstop errors
The BMW WilliamsF1 team has blamed a series of pitstop errors that cost it a podium finish in the San Marino Grand Prix today (Sunday)
Both Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya looked set to be in with a shout of top three finishes in the early stages, with Schumacher leading until his first stop, but both slid down the order to finish fourth and seventh respectively.
"Our race was hampered by a few things," said the team's chief operations engineer Sam Michael. "We went for a three stop strategy which promised to be the quicker one, which is proven by the fact that the race winner stopped three times too. But this strategy does not leave any margin for error is anything goes wrong, and we had several problems in the pitstops, the worst one being a malfunctioning fuel rig [which caused Montoya to stop again]."
BMW's motorsport director Gerhard Berger added: "As well as the problem that Juan experienced with the fuel rig, Ralf selected the wrong gear when he restarted after his first pitstop and lost some vital seconds there."
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