Dismal Race Leave Williams Point-Less

The Williams team left Canada with nothing to show for after a dismal race in which both Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya were hit by problems.

Colombian Montoya, who had scored his third pole position of the season at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit on Saturday, retired from the race on lap 57 after his BMW let go while he was running in second place and getting closer to leader Michael Schumacher.

It was the second consecutive retirement for the Colombian, who is now 43 points adrift of World Champion Schumacher.

"Everything looked perfect in the race, the car, the tyres, the strategy," said Montoya. "I was closing the gap to Michael and with 13 laps to go I was catching him quickly and as we saw he was struggling at the end of the race.

"Suddenly I felt a loss of power and that was it. We did everything right but today was not for us."

Montoya's teammate Ralf Schumacher was also hit by trouble, the German losing a lot of time during his pitstop when the fuel rig failed to work. He was forced to pit again to refuel, and despite fighting his way up the field, Schumacher only managed to climb up to seventh place.

"Today everything went wrong that could have gone wrong," said Schumacher, whose engine also let go after he crossed the finish line. "You can just blame bad luck. I had a problem with the fuel rig and this meant that my race was practically lost after the additional pitstop that I had to make. Without all these problems I think I could have aimed for second place."