Europe, June 23: Williams and BMW are getting closer all the time ... closer to a new deal, that is. BMW has been powering Williams ever since the carmaker returned to Formula One in 2000, but the two companies have yet to finalize a new contract to continue their relationship after the current deal expires at the end of 2004.
The two sides are getting closer, but the new contract that was expected to be finalized some six months ago still has to be signed.

"We are making progress," said BMW motorsport director Dr. Mario Theissen. "We started with the big issues, with the fundamentals, and we are going more and more into details."
Theissen said they deliberately did not set a deadline for the new deal. "Initially we thought we should have it done by the start of the season," he said, "but only when the discussions went into detail did we find out how complex the issue is to link all the operations together so that you achieve optimum performance. It requires more discussions than we originally expected.
"During discussions you get new ideas, and so it is not just discussions it is kind of a working process in order to find out what would be the optimum structure. To us it is very important to achieve the optimum setup. It is not so important to achieve this four weeks earlier or later."



BMW has four options in F1, according to Theissen. "One is to stop, which has been ruled out," he said. "The second one is to do everything on our own. The third one is to team with a different partner, and the fourth one, or I'd better say the first one, is to renew the partnership with Williams. This is what we are currently negotiating."



"We have had intense discussion for many months," he added. "We are trying to come to a joint view of how the future team should be structured, organized, run. And what resources it would take in order to get to the top. These are the main issues we are talking about because when extending the partnership both of us want to do it in a way that we can win the championship."



Williams remains the only top team that isn't owned at least in part by a major auto manufacturer. Fiat owns Ferrari, Renault owns Renault, and Mercedes-Benz owns 40 percent of McLaren. Among the other teams, Toyota owns its team and Ford owns Jaguar.



Frank Williams and Technical Director Patrick Head have been the sole owners of WilliamsF1 since they started the team in 1977. Williams has always declined any offers to sell shares in his team.



But will BMW buy into Williams or perhaps even buy the whole team? It's a subject that neither side wants to talk about publicly.



"It is just not relevant at this time," Williams said. "Whatever may occur in the future may well occur beyond my time for instance."



There is no question that there will be stronger links between BMW, based in Munich in Germany, and Williams, based in Grove, near Oxford, in England. As Ford does with Jaguar and Mercedes with McLaren, BMW can use its vast technical resources to help Williams build a better car.



"It is part of the discussion," Theissen said of the integration of BMW's resources onto all aspects of the car. "I would say it is as important because a big manufacturer has resources that a F1 team cannot have. This is computing power as well as testing facilities. Of course what we have was originally set up to develop road cars, but we are talking about how to make use of this for F1. I see opportunities that we should exploit."



The fiercely independent Frank Williams does not see this as giving up independence.



"It is great to be independent," Williams said, "but if people offer you help, free help ... then we would naturally want to work together. Ron (Dennis of McLaren) is amalgamated pretty close to Mercedes and that seems to work pretty well. And Ferrari is a total integration. And I am sure that Toyota eventually will be at the front of the grid. Given that we can't switch geographies, we are not going to find ourselves all working out of Munich or out of Grove."



Ferrari and Toyota are the only two F1 teams to build every thing "under one roof." As Williams said, however, there are no plans for Williams and BMW to do the same. You couldn't very well move the BMW empire to rural setting where you find the Williams factory. And it would not be a good idea to move the Williams factory out of what is known as F1's "silicon valley" because there is so much specialized F1 knowledge in this particular corner of England.



"The important issue is how to link all the activities in Munich and in Grove," Theissen said. "If you get this process straight, it doesn't matter what you do in which location. It is just daily work to all big companies to have different locations and to spread the work in the optimum way. So it may well be that we do something in Grove that was done in Munich today or vice versa, but that is not the primary goal. The goal is to find the optimum structure and the optimum processes."



Both Williams and BMW agree that the recent increase in the competitiveness of the chassis has helped smooth the way in their negotiations.



"I'd say the probability to come to a joint view, and as a result of that to come to a future partnership, is more likely to happen than not," Theissen said.



Once a new deal is agreed upon, the new structure will be implemented immediately rather than waiting until the end of 2004 and the current contract.



"If we come to an agreement on the future you can expect that to happen before 2005," Theissen said. "We would not wait until the current contract expires."


Bureau Report