Trouble free day for departing Williams pair.

The final Friday practice sessions of the 2004 Formula One season passed without trouble for the BMW Williams team, as both Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya prepare for their final race for the team on Sunday.

In dry conditions, Schumacher ended the day in tenth place overall, although he admitted that the nature of the Interlagos circuit was making it difficult to get the set-up of the car right.

Juan Pablo Montoya during practice for his final race with the Williams team in Brazil
Juan Pablo Montoya during practice for his final race with the Williams…
© Crash Dot Net Ltd

The final Friday practice sessions of the 2004 Formula One season passed without trouble for the BMW Williams team, as both Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya prepare for their final race for the team on Sunday.

In dry conditions, Schumacher ended the day in tenth place overall, although he admitted that the nature of the Interlagos circuit was making it difficult to get the set-up of the car right.

"The track seems to be massively bumpy," he said. "It is therefore not easy to find the right set-up nor will it be easy to make the right tyre choice. That said, all in all we had a trouble free day.

Teammate Montoya, in the closest thing he has to a home race, ended the opening session at the top of the timesheets, but as times tumbled in the second hour of running, the Columbian slipped down the order to end the day in eleventh place.

"We did our homework today and the car seems to respond reasonably well," the McLaren bound driver said. "The track is maybe more bumpy than before, but the tyres seem to compensate for the bumps which is good. It won't be easy to get the right balance and we have still quite a lot of work to do in view of tomorrow's qualifying."

Technical director Sam Michael admitted that the 18 month break since the last visit to Interlagos had made it a busy day for the team.

"It was a normal Friday with our time spent on evaluating tyres and working on the set-up," he said. "Since we have not been to Brazil for a long time and the cars and tyres have evolved a lot we have more work to do here than perhaps on some other Fridays. The high altitude here means everybody is down on power but also on drag."

BMW motorsport director Mario Theissen agreed with both Schumacher and Montoya that the bumpy nature of the Brazilian circuit made it difficult to set the car up, but he feels that a solid day of running has allowed the team to make the all important tyre choice for the rest of the weekend.

"It was a good practice day," he said. "Both the drivers completed their programmes methodically and without any problems. It is obviously not easy to find the ideal setup on such a bumpy circuit. Regardless, we should have collected enough data to meet our tyre choice and both the engines ran without problems.

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