Another hard luck story for JPM

The Colombian will start 11th and team-mate Antonio Pizzonia from back in 14th after he too struggled in the wet conditions, even though he was on the Michelin extreme wet tyre. The Brazilian's day was compromised when he crashed at Rivage in free practice this morning.

"The track was starting to dry out and we decided to use intermediate tyres, like Trulli, Alonso and Coulthard who went out just before me," said Montoya. "Already on my out lap it started to rain quite hard, which made it very difficult to keep the car on the track and as a result I lost a lot of time. There was no grip at all! It's a shame because in the morning we looked quite competitive in the wet and in pre-qualifying I was the second fastest driver on Michelin tyres."

Pizzonia admitted: "My qualifying was disappointing, for sure. The lack of running this morning didn't help, and I even crashed in the last few minutes. The team did a really good job in putting the car back together in time so that I was able to qualify in my race car. Obviously I'm disappointed."

Technical director Sam Michael added: "We have had a busy morning after Antonio's crash at the end of the short free practice session. We were ready just in time for pre-qualifying after a fantastic effort by the mechanics. In the main qualifying session Antonio made a couple of mistakes on his lap. Unfortunately for Juan it started to rain again right after he had left the pits on intermediate tyres. He did a good job by achieving the time that he did under these conditions."