Rogue Profile of Ralf Schumacher

“We can be reasonably happy as we are very close to Ferrari. I failed to improve my time in the last run due to a mistake,” Ralf explained. “Last year I started third here and I had my first victory in F1, so why couldn’t it be the same this year? A good strategy can take you everywhere. Lots can happen in a race but whatever happens tomorrow, we will try to get some points. It is a promising position for tomorrow.”

”It definitely wasn’t my day today. First I made a silly mistake, which I do very seldom and that’s why am so angry about it and in the end we also had a technical problem,” he explained. “In the turn before the pit lane entry I went off and damaged some parts of my car, so I had to pit and that effectively ended my race. We now go back home with some work to do for everybody: Myself as well as BMW, WilliamsF1 and Michelin.”

Ralf’s third run in qualifying was ruined when he lost the back end of his Williams
and understeered off the track. He later admitted to making a slight set-up change
which turned out to be counterproductive.

"I must say thanks to the team for having achieved such a good starting
position. I really did not expect this. We have had a very difficult weekend so
far, going through ups and downs," Ralf said. "The car was difficult
to drive and I had an off in my third qualifying run. Throughout qualifying we
tried dramatically different set up changes from the direction we were originally
going and the car improved but it was just not good enough to achieve a better
time in my last run. I have never made so many changes to my car than this during
a qualifying session."

Coming up to the first round of pit stops Ralf Schumacher was pushing hard to
defend his sixth place from the Renault of Jarno Trulli.. Coming into Les Combs
on the eighteenth lap of the race Ralf was too late on the brakes and he slid
off the track on to the grass. He was able to recover his car but he lost the
place to Trulli.

"I can only be reasonably satisfied today as I made a few mistakes.
At the start I was blocked by a slow starting Raikkonen, then I spun and went
into the gravel trap and finally when I restarted after my second pit-stop I pushed
the wrong button on the steering wheel by mistake," Ralf explained. "In
the end I have scored two points which are very valuable to the team in the fight
for the second place in the Constructors’ World Championship"

Montoya was slow away from pole position. Sensing the presence of fast starters,
Ralf Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello, Montoya aggressively chopped across his
teammate. Ralf was in determined mood and was able to pull alongside the Colombian
into the braking area for the first chicane. Montoya braked as late as he could
and Ralf tried to brake even later. The German had been too optimistic and he
understeered across the apex of the chicane, passing Montoya in the process.

The FIA took note and secretly instructed Williams to get their drivers to
change position rather than issue Ralf with a penalty for gaining an unfair advantage.
On lap five, Schumacher obligingly moved over but his engine blew and he was out
of the race.

"It was a very odd start Juan had some problems to get away so I took
advantage at the first chicane. The team was called by the FIA to swap places
with Juan," Ralf explained. "Sam told me to do so and I slowed
down. Right after that I had an engine failure. It’s a shame because we usually
have reliable engines and my car was going very fast, for the fuel load I had."

In the closing moments of Friday’s first practice session Ralf Schumacher spun
and lightly touched the wall, knocking the rear wing of his Williams.

"We have done a lot of work today. As usual on a Friday we were a bit
conservative and concentrated on race set-up instead of trying to get a good time
in," Ralf explained. "We think we have also made our tyre choice.
The track was very slippery, therefore several drivers spun. In the first hour,
when the track was still a bit damp in some places, I went off and slid backwards
taking off my rear wing in the process."

On the second lap of the race Juan-Pablo Montoya tried to pass Ralf Schumacher
under braking around the outside of the first corner. As the two Williams drivers
turned in Montoya was ahead but Ralf Spun his car, pushing Montoya on to the grass
and knocking his own rear-wing off. Montoya rejoined the race in seventh place
and Ralf pitted to have a new rear-wing fitted. Williams technical director, Patrick
Head was furious with his drivers and promised he would have stern words with
his two drivers.

Head said: "I’m not into apportioning blame between the two of them.
We’ve had some fantastic drivers in the past but they just haven’t driven into
each other. It’s absolutely ridiculous. For the amount of effort that goes into
this, to have that happen is completely unacceptable. We’ll talk about it afterwards
and try to sort out how it doesn’t happen again."

The crash probably prevented Williams securing third place in the race. Montoya
was closing rapidly on McLaren driver David Coulthard in the closing laps but
ran out of time to catch him.

Coming into the fast, right – left chicane, the blurry eyed German missed his braking point and slid over the grass at the apex of the corner, loosing valuable time in the process. Obviously flustered, he did his best to make a bad situation worse by locking the brakes into turn three. The resulting 1:27.420 lap time was highly unimpressive and it meant that an embarrassed Ralf would be running fifth in the following days qualifying session.

Ralf Schumacher was forced to run fifth in Saturday’s qualifying session. The
track was dusty and Ralf must have sensed de-jevu as he approached the first tun
because he duplicated his error that premiered in Friday’s qualifying session,
the one that had put him in the predicament in the first place.

Despite his slide over the grass, Ralf remained optimistic despite his lowly
ninth position on the grid.

"I made a mistake in the first sector which cost me a few tenths of
a second. Today I have had to pay the price for my performance on Friday as this
caused my early starting time when the track was not in its best condition,"
Ralf said. "I am not too worried about the two Sauber cars in front of
me, I think they can be sorted out in the race."

Ralf had been super-critical of the team during pre-season testing, complaining
about the car’s lack of development. His sudden change of heart may have been
tempered by the uneasy fact that Montoya has qualified the mutant fw24/25 in third
place.

On lap seventeen a slow pitstop delayed Ralph Schumacher in the pits. The Williams’
right-rear wheel nut must have been a hot rock in the mechanics hands as precious
seconds were fumbled away.

Ralf had been battling to keep ahead of the Renaults on track and he needed
to make a fast exit to the pits. Ralf was flustered: reputed to be the worst over-taker
in the sport he had to get out in front of the blue and yellow cars as he had
always found such manoeuvres very uncomfortable. As the German pulled out of the
pits Schumacher’s mirros conformed, that Alonso had come into play and Ralf stamped
his foot "mid temper-tantrum" and spun across the grass at turn one,
dropping him to seventeenth and last place. It was not good news for Alonso either
as he was pulled off the track in avoidance.

Ralf Schumacher had to qualify in the spare FW25 after he crashed his race chassis
in Saturday’s second practice session.

The FW25 was in its full 2003 specification for the first time and Ralf was
enjoying a renascence of his own. Shuey Jnr was pushing hard through Variante
Alta, too hard. As he exited the right-left flick, he applied the power too soon
and he drifter wide over the "grasscrete," far past the kerbs on the
corner’s exit.

The rear of the car lost grips as its tyres reverberated, pitching the car
into a 180 degree spin before it was abruptly arrested by the tyre barriers. The
impact was far from cushioned and the FW25′s left-hand side suspension endured
the brunt of the impact and was smashed.