Williams works hard to eliminate problem

Williams technical director Patrick Head says that the team has made strides in eliminating the tendency for its FW24 chassis to be hard on its rear tyres, harming its race performance as a consequence

In the last Grand Prix at Nurburgring, Juan Pablo Montoya scored his third successive pole position but Williams could not match the race performance of Ferrari. Or, indeed, McLaren, which uses the same Michelin tyres.

"It's true that the results of the last three races have been poor and that we have been harder on our rear tyres than McLaren have been," Head admitted at Silverstone. "That helps us in qualifying and hurts us in the race, but in truth we are more interested in where we end up on Sunday afternoon than on Saturday afternoon."

Head claimed, however, that Williams covered a lot of ground in last week's test at Barcelona and learned a lot about how to reduce the damage that the FW24 does to its rear tyres. "We're making progress," he said.

In the meantime, Michelin's Pierre Dupasquier has said that while he is not convinced that a Michelin-shod car will take pole position at Silverstone, he is quietly confident of a strong race showing. So far though, rain has interrupted the teams' preparations on the opening day, leading to calls for an increased allocation of wet rubber (see separate story).