French GP: Williams Friday qualifying notes

Both the drivers of the BMW WilliamsF1 Team had to run the First Qualifying session of the French Grand Prix under difficult conditions. Following a wet morning, the track started to dry out at the beginning of the qualifying session. Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya were third and fourth out on the circuit and had to leave the garage on wet-tyres. They qualified 18th and 15th respectively.

Juan Pablo Montoya:

"Considering the circumstances, I am pretty pleased with my qualifying lap today. My car was good and it worked fairly well. In the Free Practice session I wasn't very quick because I wasn't very comfortable with the car but it definitely improved for qualifying. Ralf was pretty much quicker than me all morning and to be faster than him in qualifying is obviously positive for me."

"In the last sector I lost a lot of time through the fast chicane due to the handling of the car, which wasn't how I expected it to be there, so I had to drive under the limit. We have to wait and see what is going on with the weather but I think we are looking pretty competitive and consistent. After all what really matters is where everyone qualifies tomorrow, not so much today."

Ralf Schumacher:

"We had no luck with the weather, but one has to take things as they come and always try to get the best out of a difficult situation. My car had slight understeer but in the first two sectors my time was better than Kimi Raikkonen's, who had gone out just before me on the same Michelin wet tyres. However, in the third sector, I had traction problems which cost me quite a lot of time. Now I am concentrating on the decisive final qualifying tomorrow."

Sam Michael (Chief Operations Engineer, WilliamsF1):

"It was a wet session for us and it was the luck of the draw where you qualified. The car was pretty strong in this morning's Free Practice session though. Anyway, we are just looking forward to tomorrow and to some dry running and we are quite positive about the race on Sunday."

Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director):

"Today's qualifying was obviously hampered by bad weather conditions. The first 15 cars went out on the track on either full- or shallow wet tyres and the last five cars could even wear dry tyres. Actually, the field was turned upside down, which will result in a very exciting final qualifying tomorrow. Our drivers made the best out of the situation and we had no technical problems at all."

Juan Pablo Montoya: 15th
Chassis: FW25 06
(Spare car FW 04)
Best time: 1. 28,988min

Ralf Schumacher: 18th
Chassis: FW25 07
Best time: 1.29,327min

-williams-