Ralf Schumacher says it’s unlikely that Jacques Villeneuve will return to Williams-BMW next year given the team bosses’ history of mistreating the Canadian and other drivers.
Ralf Schumacher says it’s unlikely that Jacques Villeneuve will return to Williams-BMW next year given the team bosses’ history of mistreating the Canadian and other drivers.
Schumacher said Villeneuve, the 1997 F1 world champion, would be welcomed if he returned to the sport. However, the German added that he would “just be very surprised if the Canadian came back to Williams. I remember the days when Frank (Williams, team boss) and Patrick (Head, technical director) blamed Villeneuve for everything and hated him and wanted to fire him and said he was useless”.
Speaking in Monaco ahead of this weekend’s Grand Prix, Schumacher said rumours that he would be dismissed by Williams-BMW before the end of the season had been started by Head.
A German magazine recently quoted a Williams-BMW source as saying that Schumacher never fully recovered from his testing crash at Monza last year, the German said, adding: “It was Patrick. And it would be kind of him to explain his statement, instead of spreading rumours for no reason. It’s nonsense, nothing else.
Head ‘spreading nonsense rumours’
” Patrick sometimes he doesn’t think about what he’s saying or he’s very emotional. It really depends on whatever he feels on the day. He’s very motivated and still tries everything to give us a winning car,” the German said. ‘Ninety per cent of the time we get on well. But it’s not the first time it has happened to me within Williams…”
CARtoday.com last year quoted Sir Frank as saying that the team had deliberately used the press to spur on Schumacher: “He must have read the comments that were written, carefully drip fed by the team, that he was a bit too inconsistent at the beginning of the year.
“But at the end of the day, the driver sorts himself out and does a grand job. If he gets very consistent and applies himself to the business of winning he will be a regular winner,” he added.
‘Juan is a difficult person’
Head recently unleashed his wrath on Schumacher’s team-mate, Juan-Pablo Montoya, saying the Colombian was not the easiest person to work with and that he would have difficulty imposing his will on McLaren-Mercedes next year.
“Juan is a difficult person. He likes to feel everyone in the team is focused on him,” said Head. “I’m not sure he’ll get quite what he’s wanting when he goes to McLaren.”
Rumour has it Montoya decided to leave Williams-BMW after Ralf Schumacher won last year’s French Grand Prix. Montoya said Schumacher was given preferential treatment during the race when the team called the German in for an early pit stop. At the time, Ralf had been rapidly losing ground to the Colombian, who was challenging his team-mate for the lead of the race.
“Juan incorrectly thought we had told Ralf of his actions and called Ralf in one lap early. So he was pretty strong on the radio abusing the team verbally for the next 10 minutes,” Head added. “And then he sulked and backed off and cruised to the end of the race and maybe finished 15 or 20 seconds behind Ralf”.
