Monaco GP: Williams Thursday qualifying notes

The BMW WilliamsF1 Team made a solid start to the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, with drivers Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya qualifying in 6th and 8th places respectively.

Ralf Schumacher:

"After this morning's Free Practice, when things didn't go very well, we managed to improve the set up of my car for the First Qualifying session. I am really happy with my time today even if there's still some work ahead of us for the Final Qualifying. The entrance to the Rascasse corner, which has been changed since last year has improved and it now has a better flow. Definitely they did a good job. Also the newly asphalted parts are an improvement infact all of the circuit could well undergo the same treatment!"

Juan Pablo Montoya:

"We had a difficult free practice session this morning, but my car improved throughout it and I hoped I could get something better out of it this afternoon. I am definitely not happy with my qualifying position. The car wasn't as fast as it should have been and I also experienced a problem at the fourth turn where I could not slow down the car quickly enough, which made me lose some time. Let's see how we can improve for Saturday's qualifying which is definitely more important than today's."

Sam Michael (Chief Operations Engineer, WilliamsF1):

"We have had a reasonable first day but there is some time to make up to the front row. We have made some changes since this morning's practice session and they were definitely in the right direction. We now have a basis to get the set up right for Saturday and we are hoping for a good session."

Gerhard Berger (BMW Motorsport Director):

"The first results don't really mean too much in Monaco. The grip of the track can change a lot before Saturday's Final Qualifing. The gap to the best Renault driver -- the quickest car today on Michelin tyres -- is about 1.5 tenths of a second which means that there's still some more to gain for us. Our drivers set similar times but I believe they both can achieve much more."

Ralf Schumacher: 6th
Chassis: FW25 05
(Spare car FW 04)
Best time: 1.17,063 min

Juan Pablo Montoya: 8th
Chassis: FW25 06
Best time: 1.17,108 min

-williams-