Williams: Dixon will get serious shot at seat.

Reigning IRL champion Scott Dixon is held in sufficiently high regard by the BMW WilliamsF1 team that his two scheduled in the FW26 will be genuine, full-fledged evaluations to see if he is 'good enough' to become one of the team's drivers for the 2005 world championship campaign.

Juan Pablo Montoya has already signed to drive for McLaren next season, and team-mate Ralf Schumacher has yet to renew his Williams contract, so Dixon is potentially auditioning for one, if not two, guaranteed vacancies at the former championship-winning team. The 23-year old Kiwi is just one of the names being bandied about with regard to the role, along with Jenson Button and Mark Webber, but is the only one likely to test with the team before the end of the season.

"There are a number of people that we are interested in, and Scott Dixon is one of them," said technical director Patrick Head, "We have at least one place on the team that we have to fill - and we have not filled it yet.

"We have talked to a number of people. A number of people who could be available have limiting clauses in their contracts that might mean that they are available, or it might mean that they are not available. It is always useful to know that, if people that we might be talking to are not available, where we go from there."

Dixon will have two tests in the Williams-BMW with the first, at Paul Ricard in southern France, scheduled for today [26 March]. This will be a chance for Dixon to familiarise himself with a F1 car before he undertakes a more intense three-day test at Barcelona in early April.

"He is running for a day at Ricard," Head confirmed, "and it is really for him to do acclimatisation so that it will give him a bit of time to think about it before he runs sometime later at Barcelona.

"It is just for an opportunity to have a look at him. He's a young chap, who has openly stated that he'd like to be in F1. He was the IRL champion last year. We are interested to have a look at him and let him have a look at F1."

Dixon's performances in the high-speed close competition in the IndyCar Series races, where he drives for Target Chip Ganassi Racing, have impressed the Williams-BMW team.

"His record in a short period in IRL, which is very high-speed racing, says we should give him a try," said team owner Sir Frank Williams, "There is not a lot of opportunity to test championship-winning people from another formula during the season. The IRL is a high-speed formula - Juan Pablo came from a formula similar to that and did well [in F1]."

Montoya was racing in the CART series, and winning the Indy 500, in 2000 while Dixon was serving notice of his talent by winning the Indy Lights championship. According to the Colombian, however, it will take a bit of time for Dixon to get out of the 'oval' groove of the IndyCar Series and back into road-racing mode.

"In the last one or two years, he has only been doing ovals," Montoya said, "so it is going to take a little time to get into the rhythm, especially in an F1 car. He's pretty good though, so I think he will do all right. In the first test, I don't expect anything from him but, in the second, he should be a little bit more competitive. It will be a good experience for him."

The team insists that the fact that Schumacher is from Germany, as is BMW, will have no bearing on whether his contract will be renewed for 2005.

"It is important to us to have the two quickest drivers available," said the engine builder's motorsport director Mario Theissen, "If one of them is a German like Ralf, that is a bonus, but it would not influence of our decision. F1 is a global business. The nationality of the driver is not too big an issue."

If Dixon does switch to F1, he will be the latest in a string of drivers who have raced in North America and then come to the grand prix scene. He would follow in the footsteps of 1995 Indianapolis 500 winner Jacques Villeneuve, and CART champions Alex Zanardi, Montoya and Cristiano da Matta.

da Matta raced against Dixon in CART and is now in his second season with the Panasonic Toyota Racing F1 team.

"The grooved tyres and the light weight of a F1 car are the two biggest things that he will have to get used to," the Brazilian said of Dixon's F1 test, "He won the IRL championship, which is a difficult championship, but obviously it is only ovals. However, he is a good road-course driver, especially if you look at his background from the races he's done in CART.

"He will have to get a bit better shape physically because he has only been driving on ovals for so long that he might have lost a bit of his neck muscles. But, as for his ability, I'm pretty sure that he is not going to have any problems. It is always difficult, but I am sure that he is going to be all right."