The BMW WilliamsF1 Team completed a three day test at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit in southern Spain today. Official test driver, Antonio Pizzonia, was scheduled to test for the three days but was sidelined due to an ankle injury sustained while in China. Consequently, Olivier Beretta, who drove for the French Larrousse team in 1994 and who has intermittently tested for the BMW WilliamsF1 Team since 2002, was brought in to partner Marc Gené for the first day of the test. Ralf Schumacher subsequently replaced Olivier for the remaining two days.

Ralf, Marc and Olivier completed a combined total of 482 laps of the Jerez circuit, a distance of 2,134 kilometers over the three day period. The BMW WilliamsF1 Team will return to the test track on 12th October at Jerez.

Tim Newton (Test Team Manager, WilliamsF1) Under clear Spanish skies, the team has spent the last three days concentrating on set-up work and tyre evaluations in preparation for the last two races of the season. Ralf spent most of his laps working on tyre testing but he also carried out some practice starts and pit stops. Marc also put in a lot of time with Michelin but concentrating mainly on development work. He also concentrated on systems checks. All in all, we’ve had a very productive test which we hope will stand us in good stead for Suzuka and Brazil.

Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director): We had a very good test. We covered a lot of mileage and we managed to rectify the problem we experienced with our starts in the last race. Furthermore, we made some progress with the traction control system and the engine.