» Silence over Sam Michael sacking rumours

Williams chairman Adam Parr has refused to deny that the team could oust its technical director, Sam Michael, in the wake of the team’s poor start to its 2011 championship season.

With rumours building this week that Michael’s head could be on the chopping block, Parr hinted to journalists that some changes were coming in the team’s technical department.

Were these rumours to be true, then Michael would be the second high-profile Australian casualty to be dumped from a senior technical role in Formula 1, following Ferrari’s Chris Dyer being ~~made the scapegoat~~ shuffled sideways into a new role during the off-season.

“If Sam thought that the right thing for the team is for him to stop, he’d stop tomorrow. He wouldn’t even quibble. He will do whatever is necessary for the team,” Parr told Reuters.

Admitting that some upcoming decisions will be “tough”, he added: “You can’t change what we are doing without changing people.

“We’re not lacking in creativity or ambition but it’s not enough. There are other people who are being more creative and more ambitious.”

And far from denying it, Michael himself seemed to be stoking these rumours along in an interview with AUTOSPORT’s website.

“I can easily see that where we are at the moment is not good enough and that falls down to me. So, we are currently reviewing that inside Williams – I am contributing to that and I am happy to do what the team wants me to do to an extent,” he told the website.

And despite getting both cars to the finish for the first time yesterday and the team holding hopes that a major upgrade for the next round in Turkey will improve its fortunes, Michael believes that the team “will” conduct an overhaul of its structure.

Since Michael – a former engineer with Lotus and Jordan – took over the technical directorship of the Williams team in 2005, Williams has gone winless.