The Daily Telegraph from London, Greater London, England • 37

sporttelegraphcouk S7 THE DAILY TELEGRAPH Monday January 5 2004 ilil Odd couple still driven to succeed Kevin The Daily new motor racing correspondent talks to Frank Williams about his unusual relationship with Montoya Counting the cost: Juan Pablo Montoya above and Frank Williams right with Ralf Schumacher THEY have become the odd couple of Formula One divorcees locked in a marriage of inconvenience Today as the ribbons are cut on the 2004 BMW-Williams in Valencia Frank Williams and Juan Pablo Montoya face the first public test of a paradox that compels team owner to invest all in a driver sworn to his greatest rival The impending loss of Montoya in 2005 to the vast Paragon empire behind McLaren-Mercedes offers no material obstacle to the Williams team emerging from the wilderness of six potless years Yet their cause cannot have been helped by the courtship of Montoya by Ron Dennis the McLaren team principal and the announcement of their subsequent engagement His loss next year will be felt the more keenly since Montoya so fits the Williams template of the archetypal racing man Williams regrets never having had the greater Schumacher in one of his cars He enjoyed only a brief association with the genius of Ayrton Senna and was determined not to let another celestial talent slip through his fingers when he jettisoned Jenson Button perhaps prematurely for the boy from Bogota A in a is how Williams describes Montoya Now as the reconstituted partnership with BMW promises to deliver the ultimate prize the man around whom much of grand design was built has broken the spell Williams maintains that performance this year will be affected only marginally by the divorce but admits to disappointment at his failure to dissuade the Colombian from moving house are all sad about the decision he made to go off to another team because it will make them stronger and us he said does not matter that it is McLaren particularly I would have felt the same had he gone to Ferrari He will be discontent at Williams was rooted in part in the difference between his pay packet and that of £12 million-a-year team-mate Ralf Schumacher Understandable initially when Montoya was selling potential and Schumacher was the known quantity in the team Difficult to stomach when Colombian hegemony was established as it was after a debut season in which Montoya disturbed the equilibrium of Michael Schumacher with barely believable overtaking manoeuvres in Brazil and Indianapolis where he took his first victory Parsimony is an endearing part of the Williams legend On this occasion Williams can console himself with the thought that even had he matched the McLaren offer a bonus-based scheme that will start by doubling £4 million-a-year salary he would not have effected a different outcome The red mist had warped thinking was annoyed at us at the time over the French GP affair when Ralf was allowed to pit first en route to a second successive win and financially he got a better offer from Ron Dennis than we could afford He was always miffed by the fact that historically Ralf has been paid more than The opposite of course is true Despite the brilliance and unstinting endeavour of co-owner Patrick Head Frank remains the most recognisable presence at Williams the figure to whom all defer His will be the key voice sought in Valencia today when clarity is sought on the Montoya issue He will begin by pointing out that there are two drivers in the team each with an equal chance of deposing Ferrari and thwarting the challenge of McLaren and Renault Williams believes the younger Schumacher wants for little as a driver has an excellent technical understanding of his machinery and a feel for the set-up of the car he needs to change perceptions is to win a few more races Ralf is underrated and just as likely as Juan to be hailed as the new king in a few Sounds like a gauntlet being thrown down Expect Montoya to pick it up in Valencia this afternoon Williams declined an offer of compensation from Dennis to take Montoya immediately Having been stung by his old friend he saw clearly that the best way to land a telling punch in retaliation would be to retain services for as long as he was able was never a chance we would let him go early a winner Why would we want to oblige Ron to take David Coulthard? Out of the question Ron asked if I would be interested in letting Juan go for a fee Money was not the issue Winning is is a great driver and he could yet win the world championship with us You must remember that when he gets in a racing car Juan help himself He is a natural killer in a car There are also very few seasons that racing drivers can afford to throw away especially when they are getting close to winning a world title You waste a season through pique or bad temper He does however appear incapable of objectivity when assessing his own role confusing a lack of input as he sees it with a lack of impact Two different things can make very little contribution if any to the challenge ahead I just come in and potter about Most of what happens here is nothing to do with me I say I provide any particular drive or motivation leading the troops from the front That occur in my life I have influence but we are not a company that has cheerleading classes every morning like the Japanese sometimes do or keep fit classes at 7 outside in the car park The guys come in to work do their best and go home usually quite worn out There have been a lot of people working over Christmas so it was important to be around when they were otherwise they might have started thinking this was a game that those upstairs we might get aggravation is with his peripheral duties sponsors and so on And we will limit the amount of information we will give him regarding the 2005 car He be privy to all of the discussions that go Early speculation about replacement in 2005 has placed Mark Webber in the seat The Australian would be a worthy choice but not the only one Button has many admirers at Williams following his impressive debut with the team four years ago not least the owner A similarly strong showing at BAR in the early part of the season by Button would force Williams to look closely at a renewal of their acquaintance did himself a power of good last year He got serious He really got his head down He was in a very happy balanced and fair environment and was treated very said Williams worked the rest out for himself There is no question that he can build on that maturity He is a world champion of the future In the right team he could put a championship At 61 Williams remains almost pathological in his desire to succeed and in the amount of time he puts in at the office He was unusually indulgent over the festive period allowing himself Christmas Day and Boxing Day at home Thereafter it was back at Grove in Oxfordshire overseeing preparations for launch of a car capable in his view of mounting a challenge from the opening race in Melbourne on March 7 His enthusiasm for the chase is remarkable set against the background of his crippling accident in 1986 that left him entombed by quadriplegia As well as denying Williams the use of his limbs the car crash appeared to emasculate emotions He is famously blunt under interrogation dealing exclusively in analytical observations Waugh given timely dose of his own medicine ONMONPAY disorders malfunctioning credit cards and noisy new toys we crave the distraction of the Premiership through these dark days: a winter break would break us So think again Arsene before you insist that the holiday will be imposed next season If you really must insist your players should have fewer matches next year just make sure that Arsenal qualify for the Champions League GOSSIP from the garages suggests that Eddie Jordan is talking to Roman Abramovich with a view to the Russian billionaire taking a stake in the eponymous Formula One team Since Jordan is capable of selling not only ice to Eskimos but also a fridge for them to keep it in we should expect some sort of deal in fairly short order But blarney aside the oligarch should not expect such swift results as he has found at Stamford Bridge: it takes much longer to build a successful Formula One team than a successful football team Unfortunately (or delightfully depending on your point of view and place of birth) retirement party seems to be turning into a rout The script that the craggy veteran had in mind involved Australia beating India in the fourth Test to regain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy a rather more significant prize than the Ashes allowing Waugh to ascend to the celestial commentary boxes trailing clouds of glory But the Indians have turned the story into a Bollywood epic First of all they treated the Australian pace attack as if they were little boys with pea-shooters then Sourav Ganguly the captain refused to declare until his side had run up more than 700 got enough by Shane Warne was heard to whinge on television then when the home team finally did get a bat they suffered a relative collapse to 342 for six with Waugh contributing what he will have considered a miserable 40 The follow-on loomed for Aus tralia in Sydney a set of circumstances encountered about as often as a feathered kangaroo You had to feel for the poor guy in the baggy green cap you? Actually no The sort of treatment Waugh is suffering in Sydney is precisely what he has been handing out to opponents over the last five years or so He believed in the mathematical and psychological power of the massive first innings believed what is more that Test runs should be scored at a one-day rate and so successfully pushed his batsmen that an Australian total of 550 for five by tea on the second day of a Test came to seem pretty much par But others have learnt from his ways most notably Ganguly and his gifted top order The combination of Australian tactics and Indian skills looks likely on this occasion to be unbeatable and Waugh having anointed the skilful and rapidly maturing Ricky Ponting as his successor can now fulfil the immutable law of Austra would be a suitable time to stand down Any volunteers? IT IS that time of year when melancholy sweeps the land: needles drop from withering Christmas trees New resolutions are exasperatedly breached the nation struggles through a massive collective hangover and Arsene Wenger suggests that his players would benefit from a midwinter break This lament comes around at 12-monthly intervals with the inevitability of Brussels sprouts and The Great Escape Look Wenger annually reminds us: they have winter breaks in France in Germany in Italy not fair! The sour-faced Highbury supremo apparently wishes to leave intact the traditional (and traditionally exhausting) round of festive season matches and then reward the players with some time off in early January Can he not see that this is when the nation needs football more than ever? Oppressed by digestive lian sport: when the going gets tough the tough go and work for Channel Nine ANOTHER captain another country another tough decision Should Martin Johnson having led the national rugby team to planetary fame now chuck in the captaincy or indeed chuck in the game altogether or lead his newly fashionable heroes into the next Six Nations competition? Johnson who is never particularly forthcoming at the best of times saying But his boss the recently knighted Sir Clive Woodward will want an answer pretty soon because the boots will be difficult to fill Woodward now needs to start preparing the captain who will lead England in the World Cup of 2007 and that does not seem likely to be Johnson The most obvious successors Lawrence Dallaglio for example are similarly advanced in years and while Jonny Wilkinson would be popular with the public he has enough Decision time: Martin Johnson ANY retiring captain of a national team would wish to step down at the right time to wave goodbye as it were from the top step of the podium with a trophy in one hand That is the course of action being suggested by many to Martin Johnson CBE captain of world-conquering rugby team And it is no doubt the course of action which was planned by Steve Waugh leader of perennially world-dominant cricket squad weight on his shoulders without the added burden of the captaincy So a relative youngster should get the job once Johnson has stood down Once that is someone has told Johnson that now i.