Williams opt for change to avoid tyre repeat.

The BMW-WilliamsF1 team have confirmed that they have made a number of 'precautionary changes' to the FW27 ahead of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza next weekend, following their 'mysterious' tyre issues in Turkey last Sunday.

Williams were forced to withdraw both Mark Webber and Nick Heidfeld after they twice suffered right rear tyres failures.

A statement put out by the Grove based squad read:

"The team has concluded its enquiry into the tyre incidents in Turkey, determining as far as possible that a set of conditions spanning mechanical set-up, bodywork configuration and tyre deflections caused the problems experienced at the last race.

"Although the car specification in this area had raced without incident in previous Grands Prix, a number of precautionary changes have been made to the car and engineers are confident the team will not experience a repeat of the problems."

Williams technical director, Sam Michael meanwhile added that they also looked at the issue during testing this week at Monza.

"To address the tyre incidents that we experienced in Istanbul, we have worked through all the possible variables, such as pressure and camber, with Michelin," he explained. "In the Williams R&D labs at Grove we also performed some loaded tyre tests to check what type of deflections the tyres would have seen during the lap. Finally, at the test in Monza, we went through various trims of the bodywork to ensure that there is no possibility for the tyre to touch anything on the car.

"We also worked through cooling levels, brake set-ups and tyre evaluations to select the optimum configuration for the FW27 in preparation for the race."

Looking ahead to the Italian GP a bit more, Michael added that Monza 'stands out' from other circuits due to the fact it is 'dominated by long straights, a couple of chicanes and four important corners - top speeds will also be the highest seen all year'.

"Set-up demands very low drag, in order to achieve top speeds, we use specific front and rear wings unique to Monza," he continued. "It is important to have a good balance through the medium speed corners and for the car to handle well over the curbs."