Franz Tost says Williams cost 48-year-old his only shot at winning a world title in 2003

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Franz Tost has blamed Williams for costing BMW a championship and Ralf Schumacher the chance to win the only Formula 1 title of his career.

Back in 2003, Williams were fighting with Ferrari and McLaren at the top of the Constructors’ Championship.

Speaking to F1 Insider, Tost believes that BMW were at their very best that year, but one key mistake cost them the chance to win the title.

The early 2000s was one of the most competitive periods in Formula 1 history.

McLaren had recently won titles with Mika Hakkinen and Ferrari had just poached Michael Schumacher from Benetton.

Williams were also one of the top teams on the grid and were regularly challenging for race wins in stark contrast to their performances in the past few years.

While Michael Schumacher will always be considered one of the greatest drivers in the sport’s history, his brother Ralf was no slouch either.

The 48-year-old raced nearly 200 times in F1, recording six wins and 27 podiums.

Schumacher came into 2003 with Williams off the back of two fourth-place finishes in the championship and Tost believed he had a brilliant chance of leading the team to a title.

Unfortunately, they made one key error that cost them towards the end of the campaign and Ferrari went on to win the championship by just 14 points, with Ralf’s brother Michael just pipping Kimi Raikkonen to the title.

Tost blames Williams for Ralf Schumacher failure

Speaking about the incident 20 years ago, Tost said: “BMW was the absolute technological highlight. BMW has built the best engine I have ever experienced in Formula 1.

“The problem was Williams, who simply weren’t up to speed. They were to blame for BMW not being able to win the constructors’ title.

“In Monza 2003, Ralf Schumacher had a serious accident because Williams had installed old wheel suspensions, which then broke during training.

“A replacement pilot had to step in for the injured Ralf. With Ralf, BMW would have become world champion, I’m sure.

“I really enjoyed working and living in Munich. It is one of my absolute favourite cities.”

Tost was furious that Schumacher missed the race in Italy thanks to an old part Williams installed and he was replaced by Marc Gene that day.

The Spaniard finished fifth in Monza, but Schumacher could have potentially challenged his brother and teammate Juan Pablo Montoya for the win that day because of his familiarity with the car.

Ralf Schumacher ended up finishing fifth that season and never reached those heights again in F1.

He moved to Toyota at the end of 2004 before leaving Formula 1 entirely without winning another race in 2007.