BMW power key to Williams success?

Despite an extensive program with Jorg Muller in 1999, BMW made a cautious re-entry into Formula One last year with the Williams Formula One team with an engine that erred on the side of stability and reliability rather than power and speed. There were many questions being asked about the Munich firms V10 motor after a number of pre-season testing problems meant they entered the first race of the season at Melbourne as a bit f an unknown quantity.

However Ralf Schumacher's impressive third place in that debut race and an equally pleasing performance by Jenson Button laid many of the fears to rest and the team went on to finish third in the Constructors Championship and 5th (Schumacher) and 8th (Button) in the driver's table.

Armed with this new-found confidence, BMW went to work on the engine that would power Williams' 2001 and the result is a unit both light and powerful, one that the companies Motorsports Director Gerhard Berger hopes will propel the team to at least one race win this year.

"Last year we were a bit more conservative for the sake of the engine's reliability," said the Austrian, a veteran of 208 Grand Prix's. This year we a re prepared to risk a bit more."

BMW had to raise their game over the winter when faced with the new Honda and Renault power-plants that power Williams' nearest rivals, BAR, Jordan and Benetton, in the Constructor's Championship. Whilst always looking ahead to McLaren and Ferrari, the team now had to defend their third place in the Constructors table, a task that Jordan couldn't manage in 2000, and thus the German company had to not only match the power being brought out by Honda and Renault but move further ahead into Ferrari and Mercedes territory.

Berger is well aware of the potential pit-falls of being too hasty in the development stages but, as he told the press at the launch of the FW23 on Saturday, it was a step BMW were willing to make.

"I think they [BAR, Jordan and Benetton] will all be right under our gearboxes this year," added the Austrian. "If we make one mistake then we'll be eaten by them....but it's the only way to close the gap to those in front of us."

After suffering less than five engine related retirements between them in 2000, BMW already have an enviable reliability record to live up to and despite a few niggling problems in testing thus far, newly appointed test driver Marc Gene headed the times in Barcelona on Friday.

The car will get it's first complete shakedown run at Silverstone on Saturday afternoon when the world will first get to hear the glorious rasp of the new BMW engine, one which will be watched very closely this year in the hands of Ralf Schumacher and Juan Montoya.