After an impressive display at the weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, BMW Williams test driver, Antonio Pizzonia, will again race in place of Nick Heidfeld in Belgium.
After an impressive display at the weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, BMW Williams test driver, Antonio Pizzonia, will again race in place of Nick Heidfeld in Belgium.
Pizzonia, the team’s long-standing test driver, took over from Heidfeld at the Italian Grand Prix after the German was declared unsafe to race following a high-speed crash – at Monza – while testing.
With the added demand of back-to-back races, Williams BMW has decided to give the Heidfeld sufficient time to recuperate completely. This will also give Pizzonia the best chance to qualify strongly after finishing in the points at Monza last weekend.
“Our first priority is prudence in relation to Nick’s condition,” said team chief Frank Williams. “Although the broad view is that he may well be ready to race by Friday, the back-to-back calendar at this time does not allow the luxury of more time to reach this conclusion, so it is best both for Nick, and indeed the team if we make a clear and early decision that Antonio will race this weekend.
“In addition to allowing Nick more time to recover, we can nominate Antonio now and he can benefit on Saturday in Belgium with a good starting position for qualifying from the strong seventh place finish he secured in Monza.”
Meanwhile, it is clear that current F1 champion Michael Schumacher will not be able to defend his title in the last four races remaining in the season.
“It was not the outcome we were looking for,” said Schumacher about the first time in ten years that the team had failed to score points at the historic circuit.
“We have to work even harder to bridge the gap before the end of the season. We would like to score a win before the championship ends,” Schumacher optimistically said.
“I don’t think that it will be possible to reverse the trend in such a short time. We are quite a long way off the pace at the moment. This does not mean we will not be trying our best though. No-one should be writing us off just yet. I am sure we will come back”.
However, former F1 champion Niki Lauda had called the provisional signing of MotoGP star Valentino Rossi to Ferrari in 2007 “completely foolish”.
“I cannot imagine Ferrari teaching their race driver how to drive a car and to race,” Lauda exclaimed.