At the end of the San Marino Grand Prix a week ago, the WilliamsF1 team found themselves very relieved to see both cars cross the finish line after failing to finish the past two events, Australia and Malaysia. At Imola Webber scored 3 points for the Grove based squad after starting from 10th position on the grid, a position that could have been better if the team had not been carried away with their choice of Michelin tyres.

According to our spies in Imola, instead of continuing with the soft tyre choice on Saturday morning, they lost valuable track time trying out the hard option again and as it was not giving the results they desired, the team opted to return to the soft compound. They then put too much fuel in the tank for the final twenty minutes of qualifying, throwing away a possible seventh or eighth grid spot in the process.

However, that is the least of their problems at the moment; instead their biggest worry is the Cosworth engines that power the FW28. In the test at Barcelona prior to San Marino, Cosworth lost three V8’s and all with the same conrod problem that caught Rosberg out in the Malaysian Grand Prix in March. All had a mileage of over 600 kilometres on the clock, therefore the problems all occurred in the second life cycle.

The test in Silverstone this past week was to see how they can get around this problem with reduced revs, as the Nurburgring will be the second race for the engines. If no solution was found, Williams is considering taking the 10 grid demotion and installing new engines.

“Maybe the penalty is not so big at the Nurburgring, because at that time of the year it can easily rain,” Webber said. “A chaotic race would help if we go that way.”

Cosworth chief engineer Alex Hitzinger confirmed that they are working hard on the conrod problem and should have a solution soon….

“By Monte Carlo we should have a solution. For a small company like us it is more difficult to react than it is for the big ones.”