Early birthday present for Montoya

The Colombian, who is 26 on Thursday, cheated the fanatical tifosi of witnessing another Ferrari victory by racing home five seconds ahead of Rubens Barrichello, with Ralf Schumacher third and an out-of-sorts Michael Schumacher fourth.

In doing so, Montoya, who has started from pole three times in the last four races, finally notched up the victory he has been threatening to score for much of the season. But it might not have come about at all had Ferrari not bungled Rubens Barrichello's first fuel stop, losing the Brazilian around five seconds.

"I am so happy and I want to thank everyone at Williams and BMW and Michelin," said Montoya. "I am so pleased with this result. This is my first year and I wasn't expecting to win.

"I had a couple of opportunities where I could have won, and didn't, but I wasn't getting frustrated," he continued. "I just said to myself, if the time is meant to come it will,

"My father is here, and it's his birthday so that's pretty good."

The triumph in the 15th round of the championship comes almost exactly a year his last win - for Ganassi Racing in the US-based Champ Car series.

"It is also exactly a year ago since my last win in CART," he added.

But it was far from a straightforward lights-to-flag victory, as the Colombian's rear tyres started blistering early in the race. Struggling to come to terms with the increasingly unstable car cost him the lead on lap nine as Barrichello dodged past.

"The tyres were blistering and I was sliding under braking. So while I was trying to handle the car I made a mistake and he got me. It took me a couple of laps to get back into groove.

"Then on the second stop we went too extreme with the front wing and I had tons of understeer," explained Montoya. "But as the race went on the car got better and better.

"It has been a good season, I think. I've struggled in qualifying initially, but in the last four races I have had three poles so I have improved that a little bit.

"Our aim is to get the team to second in the constructors' championship and the amount of points we got here is going to help."

With a maximum of 32 points up for grabs over the last two races of the season, Williams is just eight points behind McLaren-Mercedes, who failed to get either car to the flag.