Montoya celebrates first pole of '03

Montoya outpaced team-mate Ralf Schumacher by just 0.018secs, thanks to a stellar final sector on his flying lap.

"Finally I've got my first pole of this season," he said. "It's taken me a long time to get it! It's the second time I am on pole on at Hockenheim. The car was working really good today and we've pulled together, got through a lot of hard work and it's paid off.

"I am also confident that we are going to have a good race tomorrow. In these conditions tomorrow's race will be hard both physically and mentally. It will also test the reliability of all the cars. Hopefully we can score some good points for both championships."

Williams' chief operations engineer, Sam Michael, is anticipating another dominant performance from his drivers in the race tomorrow.

"It was a solid job from the team to get both the cars onto the front row and it puts us in a strong position for tomorrow's race," he said. "The aerodynamic improvements we brought to this circuit are clearly another step forward. Also Michelin once again provided us with a very good tyre for the heat. We are obviously feeling confident going into tomorrow's German Grand Prix."