Williams Still Target Second Place in Championship

Williams-BMW bosses expect to end the season fighting for second place in the World Championship after pinning their hopes on a raft of improvements that will begin at the French Grand Prix in July.

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya finished eighth in last Sunday's European Grand Prix as the British team continued a difficult run of three races in which only one car has reached the finish.

A first-lap collision between Montoya and German teammate Ralf Schumacher ruined their hopes of a strong points-scoring finish and allowed BAR-Honda and Renault to extend their leads in the championship table.

But BMW motorsports boss Mario Theissen said: "Certainly we can (still aim best of rest) and we will and you never give up in a season right up to the final race.

"Renault have opened up quite a gap in terms of the points' standings but the season is long enough for us to recover and certainly the team is pushing very hard.

"You never know what can happen - we saw something unexpected last year when we had a start that was equally difficult to this year but by the half season we seemed to have the quickest car."

Williams, who had expected to be title contenders this year, have scored just nine points in the last three races, compared to 30 for Renault and 19 for BAR.

They had pinned their hopes on a radical car but it has so far failed to perform and engine suppliers BMW requested a detailed plan for its rapid development, which will be handed to them on Wednesday.

The first step will arrive in time for the July 4 race at Magny Cours but the car will remain the same for the next two back-to-back fly-away events in Canada and the United States.

And team principal Sir Frank Williams admitted: "Our development progress has simply not been fast enough since the Bahrain Grand Prix in April, that's a fact, and we are being left behind.

"BMW were pressing us for a plan on development of this car, which they will receive on Wednesday, and we will have a plan for ourselves that we will share with BMW for next year's car, which is being worked on at the present time.

"We don't have a horsepower problem and we need to work at our factory in Grove much more successfully than we have been working. There should be a useful update in time for the French Grand Prix, we hope."

For now, Williams will have to accept their position behind second-placed Renault and third-placed BAR, who are 25 points and 10 points ahead in the championship table respectively.

But Theissen does not believe the scores show the true performance potential because Renault's position is down as much to consistent reliability as it is to pure race pace.

Both Renault and Ferrari have only posted one retirement this year and have scored points with every car that has got to the finish. In contrast, Williams have had three retirements and two non-points finishes.

And after the race at the Nurburgring Theissen added: "I think we would have been in the range of the Renaults if we had not had the problems at the start here. We are about even with Renault I would say.

"BAR has an advantage over us at the moment but there will be improvements in the season and I am confident that we can catch up and can get close to the two teams ahead of us.

"But Ferrari now have more than 100 points, they are very strong and they have already got home so many top results this season that it needs their help for us to catch them."