Williams suffer in France
ByReuters
Published 04/07/2004 at 18:16 GMT
Juan Pablo Montoya felt the pain of struggling for a single point in Sunday's French GP as his revamped Williams failed to impress. The Colombian crossed the line eighth at Magny-Cours, a circuit where Williams were dominant last year, and said he was still feeling the effects of a heavy crash in practice on Friday.
"The neck was a bit sore and it was hard to hold it," he told reporters. "The harder thing was my lower back. Yesterday I was fine with it and this morning I woke up with a really stiff lower back.
"It was pretty tough, but when the car is good you can push and push and you don't feel anything," he added. "But, if the car starts sliding all over the place and you can't push it, then the pain just comes straight back. So the adrenalin just takes all the pain away."
Montoya could have finished higher but he hit a kerb after 18 laps and spun, falling back to ninth.
FEW MISTAKES
"The balance of my car wasn't ideal, especially in the first part of the race, which caused me to make a few mistakes," he added. "I really hoped I could get much more than one single point today."
Williams technical director Sam Michael agreed the car's pace had been disappointing against Formula One champions Ferrari and Renault.
"No one could run with (Fernando) Alonso or Michael (Schumacher)," he said. "But the car was good enough to be third if we had qualified well and had good starts and not had the spin.
"There was nothing wrong with the car electronically or mechanically when he (Montoya) had the spin. He just lost it."
Spanish test driver Marc Gene finished 10th, standing in for the injured Ralf Schumacher.
"We came here with a lot of new parts on the car which haven't been tested," added Michael, whose team are fourth in the championship but only 15 points clear of a resurgent McLaren. "We thought let's do it anyway because if we don't then that's two races we'll miss as there's no testing between here and Silverstone.
"I think it was still the right decision, but maybe it will take us another race to get it sorted out."
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