Villeneuve slams BAR reliability woes

Boom!
By Phil Huff (04/05/2003)
May 4 2003

Jacques Villeneuve suffered another failure in the Spanish Grand Prix, making it three retirements from five, and he's anything but happy.

Following his retirement due to an electrical fire, Villeneuve spoke to Louise Goodman live in ITV F1, and said "We decided in qualifying to qualify with a lot of fuel so we end up looking stupid in qualy because we're slower than Jenson is and just because we have a better strategy; and then we can't even use it because the car breaks down, so it's been like that race after race and it's just becoming a little difficult."

It wasn't just Villeneuve's race that suffered from mechanical gremlins - Jenson suffered gearbox problems in the latter part of the race, almost certainly costing him a valuable point. "We had a gearshift problem towards the end of the race," said Jenson, "and I lost third gear three laps from the end and fourth for the last two laps."

Previously Villeneuve failed to start the Malaysian Grand Prix following an electrical problem, an didn't finish at San Marino due to engine failure. This led him to comment "We need to work on reliability now and make sure we don't keep missing out on good opportunities."

Jenson has finished all the races this season, except for the Brazilian Grand Prix when he spun off in adverse conditions.