Williams against Schumacher test 03 Aug 2009
The Williams team have voiced their opposition to Ferrari’s request to let Michael Schumacher test the team’s current car in preparation for his planned Formula One comeback at the European Grand Prix.
With testing banned during the season under the current regulations, Ferrari had asked their fellow teams and the FIA for special permission to give Schumacher a run in the F60 ahead of his appearance at Valencia, where he is due to take the place of the injured Felipe Massa.
However, drawing comparisons between Schumacher’s situation and that of Toro Rosso newcomer Jaime Alguersuari, who debuted successfully in Hungary with no previous F1 experience, Williams insisted that allowing the German to test would clearly contravene the regulations and set an unfair precedent.
"In a similar situation, Williams would unhesitatingly use its current test driver,” said Williams. “For the sake of consistency and fairness, therefore, we oppose Ferrari's proposal to test ahead of the European Grand Prix."
Red Bull are also understood to have also raised objections and with Ferrari having failed to obtain the agreement of all teams, it means Schumacher will now be restricted to testing an older car and using Ferrari’s factory-based simulator. On Friday he completed almost 70 laps of Italy's Mugello circuit using a two-year-old F2007 machine running on GP2 slick tyres.
