Montoya suffers difficult opening day

Montoya was seventh fastest, two places behind team-mate Ralf Schumacher, and said his car was not handling to his liking on the revised circuit layout.

"There's still some jobs to do on the balance of my car," he said. "We spent the session learning the track and adjusting it to the new course, but still I am not very comfortable here. During the sessions we concentrated also on tyre evaluation, which we need to be very careful about."

Montoya also ran into an unusual problem with his crash helmet during the second hour-long session on Friday.

"At the end of the session I was doing a long run but I had a problem with the visor of my helmet which wasn't sealing perfectly and I had to abort the run and come back into the pits to have the helmet replaced," he reported.

In contrast, his team-mate Schumacher was happy with his lot on the opening day, and was highly complimentary about the new circuit's layout.

"For us the practice went according to plan, we were able to test and check everything we wanted to," said Ralf. "I am really enthusiastic about the new circuit. It is a lot of fun. The area before the hairpin offers a good opportunity for overtaking. The circuit is one of the best I have ever raced on, my compliments to the designer."