MOTOR SPORT:WILLIAMS COULD have signed Lewis Hamilton in 2004 but their former engine partners BMW passed up the opportunity, the Formula One team's co-founder Patrick Head said yesterday.

Head told reporters Hamilton and his father, Anthony, had visited the team's factory that year after falling out with backers McLaren while the Briton was racing in Formula Three Euroseries.

"They rang up and said 'can we come and see you?'" he recalled. "And they came in and said 'Ron Dennis (the McLaren boss) has dropped us.'

"We were with BMW at the time and I think Frank rang Mario Theissen (then BMW motorsport director) . . . and I think Mario said they weren't prepared to provide any support and we weren't in a position financially where we could finance his racing.

"So much to Frank's annoyance (now), he could have had Lewis in a Williams," said Head.

Hamilton, the first black Formula One driver and now one of the hottest properties in the sport, won four races and was overall runner-up last year in the most sensational debut by a rookie.

McLaren announced last month they had agreed a five-year deal, keeping the 23-year-old with them to the end of the 2012 season.

McLaren, meanwhile, have expressed "extreme displeasure" over reported Italian police claims that senior members of the team have "responsibility" for the spying saga that rocked the sport last year. Italian magistrates questioned McLaren top brass on Wednesday as part of the Modena district attorney's criminal inquiry into the incident that saw the Woking-based team come into possession of a 780-page dossier of Ferrari technical data.

Italian police issued a statement yesterday which suggested that evidence taken from McLaren's headquarters implicated high-level McLaren employees in the case.

A statement issued by McLaren slammed the wording of the police statement as "grossly inaccurate and misleading", adding "due process needs to be respected and that the conduct of an investigation process should not be . . . used for publicity purposes."

Super Aguri confirmed yesterday their cars will be on the starting grid for the opening grand prix of the season, in Australia on March 16th.

The Japanese team pulled out of this week's final pre-season tests while talks continued with potential investors but insisted a mix-up over car parts was to blame.

"The cancellation was because some parts hadn't arrived in time," Super Aguri's co-owner Fumio Akita told Reuters. "We are usually scrambling to be ready for the start of the season.

"It was very tight last year and this year is following the same pattern. But we will be on the grid for Melbourne. We're not worried at all about missing out."