Ralf Schumacher's 2002 Malaysian GP

Posted on Wednesday 01 Apr 2009 and tagged with malaysia, sepang.

In the ten Malaysian Grands Prix Williams F1 has competed in, the team has only taken victory once, back in 2002 with Ralf Schumcher. Patrick Head, Director of Engineering, looks back at the 2002 race which saw the team dominate Sepang and take home a first one-two finish for the first time for the partnership with BMW.

The 2002 Malaysian Grand Prix resulted in the first ever one-two for a BMW-powered car in Formula One, and a first win of the season for BMW Williams. The team’s Director of Engineering, Patrick Head, picks up the story.

“AT&T Williams has good memories of racing in Malaysia because we’ve achieved some good results at Sepang. Our best race at the track was in 2002, when we finished first and second with Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya, and I have to say that our success that year was predominantly down to a good tyre from Michelin. It certainly suited the circuit, but the drivers both did good jobs as well.

“Juan Pablo had a bump with Michael [Schumacher] at the start and he received a drive-through penalty as a result. He then drove a storming race to climb back through the field to second place, while Ralf cruised to victory after Rubens Barrichello’s car had a problem in the middle of the race.”

Ralf finished 39 seconds ahead of Juan Pablo to take his fourth win for the team, but he was aware of his good fortune at the start.

“I had a bit of luck today,” said Ralf. “I feel sorry for Juan Pablo and Michael about their first corner accident, but sometimes racing works like that. My car was wonderful to drive, especially after my pitstop.”

Come season’s end, Ralf finished fourth in the World Championship and it was a source of frustration for the team that it never managed to construct a consistent World Championship challenge with the young German.  

“Ralf was with us for a number of seasons,” says Patrick Head, “and, unfortunately, we didn’t manage to put together a serious challenge for the World Championship with him. The closest we got was in 2003, when he finished fifth in the drivers’ standings. But he was an outstanding driver and he won six GPs during his time with us, including this race in Malaysia 2002.”