Mixed Fortunes for Williams Drivers

While Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya enjoyed a trouble-free day to set a promising second quickest time in Friday's practice for the German Grand Prix, teammate Ralf Schumacher was not so lucky and ended the day down in tenth place.

Montoya, driving a Formula One car for the first time at the Hockenheim circuit, was less than a tenth of a second slower than Jaguar's Eddie Irvine, who topped the timesheets today. The Williams driver was encouraged by his performance but warned to wait until qualifying to see where the BMW-powered cars really are.

"It was a pretty good day, but we have to wait to see what everybody has got for tomorrow," said Montoya. "We looked quite competitive today, which is encouraging. The car is pretty good and seems to ride the kerbs fairly well, which I think helps a lot. We are quite slow in the last sector, so I think we have to work on that a little bit."

Schumacher was unable to match his teammate's pace after spinning off the track at the start of the afternoon session. The German driver finished exactly 1.5 seconds behind Montoya and due to his problems he is expecting a tough practice on Saturday.

"The first hour went as we expected and was quite good," admitted Ralf. "Unfortunately I went off at the beginning of the second hour, and so couldn't continue the set-up work we had started in the first session.

"I was a little too quick into the Motodrom, lost the rear and hit the tyre barrier lightly. Because we can't use the spare car today, we are facing a lot of work in free practice tomorrow."