Engine disaster for Schu Jr

Schumacher had only been on track for a couple of laps when his BMW engine expired, which means he will be docked 10 places from his qualifying position on Saturday.

"The engine problem I had at the beginning of today's first session undermined all my plans for this weekend," he said. "Adding to the penalty that I will have to start 10 places further back on the grid, I have also lost a lot of valuable time for setting up the car. This means we have a lot of work ahead of us for Saturday's practice. This is not an ideal situation, but I'll make the best of it."

BMW Motorsport director Mario Theissen explained: "There was a defect on Ralf's engine right at the beginning of the first free practice session, shown by telemetry data as well as oil samples. We need to strip it down to understand what the exact reason was. The engine is now being taken immediately to the factory in Munich and we expect to know by Friday the outcome of the analysis."

Schumacher ended the second session in 12th, two places behind team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya.

"I exploited as much as I could today's free practice sessions, evaluating tyres and also trying different aero parts," said Montoya. "We need to work more on the set-up, because it's not ideal yet but above all I believe we are still not quick enough."

WilliamsF1's chief operations engineer, Sam Michael, admitted: "We have had a difficult first day here in Monaco. Juan tried various set-up changes for the race and we also evaluated some different brake cooling options on both cars, we now have a good choice for the race. After missing the first session, Ralf concentrated on long runs for the race set up in the afternoon session."