APRIL 16, 2001
Head - Schumacher win reward for Williams patience
WILLIAMS TECHNICAL DIRECTOR Patrick Head has said that Ralf Schumacher's win at Imola was a long-overdue reward for team boss Frank Williams' patience during the dark days of 1998.
Williams won both the drivers' and constructors' titles in 1997 but were relegated to a meagre 38-point total the following year as Heinz-Harald Frentzen and champion Jacques Villeneuve failed to sparkle.
"There were certainly some races when I thought 'bloody hell! How can we have gone from being so competitive in 1997 to so dreadful in 1998," Head said.
"Like many other teams, we were really made to look second-rate by how good the McLarens and Bridgestones were then. I asked myself how we had fallen so far, but Frank is a very determined and driven person and the really good thing about him is that when things are not going right he does not explode and throw the toys out of the pram."
"He thinks logically and sits down with me and when we meet at lunchtime with my bowl of soup or whatever we talk about the problems and what they are and what we can do to put them right."
"Frank is a great strategic planner so he is a great part of the equation."