Monaco GP: Williams Thursday notes

Trouble free Thursday Free Practice session for the BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya, who were 6th and 9th respectively in Monte Carlo, for the 2002 Monaco Grand Prix.

Ralf Schumacher

"It is good that we have had a first day without any problems and this is extremely important here. I have found the track surprisingly clean, which made it a lot easier for us. I am quite happy with the balance of the car and we have also already made our tyre choice. But even though, my lap time is just not good enough yet. We have to see how we can improve."

Juan Pablo Montoya

"I am pretty happy, today went quite well and we did a lot of work with the set-up. I am still struggling a bit with the balance of the car but it is getting better and better. I feel a lot more comfortable than last year and the car is a lot more competitive. I think there is still more to come and we will make further improvements by Saturday. We usually do."

Sam Michael (Chief Operations Engineer, WilliamsF1):

"It was a normal first practice day, doing race set up and then looking towards a set up for Saturday. Looking at where we have finished we still have quite a bit of work between now and then. We collected useful data on the tyres and now we will have a look and see what we can do. It's also good that both the drivers have got through today's sessions without any crashes."

Gerhard Berger (BMW Motorsport Director):

"On Thursday in Monte Carlo it is very important for a driver to find a good rhythm and not to crash in the barriers as this hampers the whole working programme. Track conditions change so much here from Thursday to Saturday even if the weather doesn't change. You cannot really start working on the fine tuning for qualifying earlier than Saturday morning. We have completed our programme for the race and all in all we had a troublefree day."

Ralf Schumacher: 6th
Chassis: FW24 06
Best time: 1.19,937 min

Juan Pablo Montoya: 9th
Chassis: FW24 05 (T-Car FW24 02)
Best time: 1.20,264 min

-williams-