Mario Theissen: the highs and lows of BMW’s F1 journey
F1: Beyond The Grid
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The Importance of Reliability
In 1999, Gerhard and myself immediately saw that the team was not ready to compete in Formula 1. I still remember a test at Heres in January 2000 where we went with 10-15 engines for a three-day test with one car. With no engine, we had completed a race distance on the track. Not even on the dyno. And so we went there. Jenson Button went off with an engine failure as expected pretty soon in the race. But Rolf Schummer finished the race, and not only finished it, he finished in top three. We just couldn't believe it. It got the relationship off with Williams to a brilliant start.
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