The Williams team began the season as favourites to end an era of Ferrari domination, yet after 14 races of the 2002 season already gone, the Grove-based squad have only scored one victory and are miles away from the dominant Italian team. Karl Ludvigsen believes that if there's not a change ot attitude at Williams, they will never be able to challenge for the top spot again

There's no doubt about it. The press launch of a new Grand Prix car is designed to get you excited about its prospects, and I went to the Williams 2002 launch. I came away high on the team's prospects for this season, and said so afterward. I concluded my column by saying, "I see another season of triple-digit points ahead for Williams - the first of many." With the benefit of both hindsight and foresight, I think I was wrong.

First let's look at the specifics of that forecast. After 14 races Williams BMW has 86 points. That's just over an average of 6 points per race. It's a result that places them a strong second in the makes' championship and shows that their push for reliability this season - a strong team priority - has paid off. A quick look suggests that they have had only four retirements all told, hurting Montoya more than Ralf. That's a remarkably good record by any standard.

If that hit rate continues through the last three races, Williams BMW will finish the year with 104 points - just scraping into triple-digit territory. I think it's likely that they'll make it, with the next circuits playing to some of the strengths of their package. So that makes my early-year forecast look pretty good. Why, then, am I changing my mind? I'm changing it because I fear this may be the last such triple-digit season for Williams, perhaps forever.

One reason for my pessimism is the team's manifest shortage of convincing and consistent speed. To the "red boys," as he calls them, "the gap is very wide," said Frank Williams at Spa. He knows that the odd pole position does not provide a guide to race-winning performance. Yet no one thinks that the gap is owed to a lack of horsepower. BMW seems to have that aspect covered. So the gap must be attributable to the chassis and tires in various combinations, depending on the driver and track. We can be confident that BMW is pointing this out to Williams. We have the opposite of the situation at McLaren, where Ron Dennis and company are looking to Mercedes to deliver power that will match their chassis. And Mercedes/Ilmor is clearly making progress in that direction.

With today's technology, getting the chassis right is a daunting task. Even with very good people, Jaguar showed at the beginning of the year how easy it is to get it wrong. Skilled people and costly resources are needed to back up a strong chassis programme. Williams has both. Frank Williams stressed in my interview with him that his team plows back much of its earnings into its physical plant. But will this be enough to keep pace with the rest? I doubt it.

Frank was loath to give me specifics of the number of people he and Patrick Head employ at Grove. "I'd rather not say," was his response, "but it's a lot of people. McLaren have a number and we're very close to - not out of touch with - that number." When I mentioned this to Teddy Mayer, an old McLaren hand, he said, "They probably have less than most, than Ferrari and McLaren. I suspect they do have quite a few less." Quantity is not the whole answer, of course. But you need to be staffed in depth in all the departments that contribute to a strong chassis performance. I believe that Williams will find it hard to achieve that with its present way of operating as a separate team, independent of its engine supplier. This may be a concept that has had its day, at least at the apogee of the sport.

I'm not saying that Williams won't enjoy quite a few more seasons as a viable team. But if they remain structured as they are, I expect a slow decline along the lines of Lotus during the 1980s. Lotus could look back at a good record, with seven Constructors' Championships and many great wins. But there came a time when it could no longer sustain a place at the front. I wouldn't blame that on the loss of Colin Chapman, although his charisma was certainly effective in gaining sponsorship. But his technical flights of fancy were no longer suited to the kind of game Formula One had become. Indeed, they involved Lotus in costly experiments that produced no results.

Like Lotus in its day, Williams is facing intensified competition. Renault must be a serious contender for a place at the top in the next year or two. So too must be Toyota, with the advantage of its integrated engineering facilities. Even BAR-Honda will bid fair to challenge for a place at the front. In the light of my remarks above, and the rise of these rivals, I think Juan Pablo Montoya made a good decision to be a free man after the 2004 season. At that point he will be in huge demand.

Although Frank Williams expressed a strong desire to remain independent, I think there's every chance that he and Patrick Head will sell some or all of their team to BMW. We have to acknowledge that Williams turned 60 in April. Dyed-in-the-wool racer he verifiably is, but he's a generation away from the men who are designing today's best Grand Prix cars. The same must be said of Patrick Head. There are no obvious successors to these men inside the team. BMW, however, would be able to create the personnel infrastructure and make the investments needed to create a team that could challenge for championships. If they don't, we could see Williams go the way of Lotus - or even Tyrrell. And that would be a crying shame.