Montoya Optimistic of Strong Race

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya says he is confident of a strong Austrian Grand Prix following a good performance in today's qualifying.

The Williams driver, who has scored only one podium so far this season, completed his best qualifying performance of the year by posting the third fastest time behind World Champion Michael Schumacher and Championship leader Kimi Raikkonen in the McLaren.

"After following a different philosophy with our set-up today, we have been fairly consistent through practice, warm-up and qualifying doing 1.09.3 laps," said Montoya, "so I think this was as quick as the car could go in qualifying without taking any risks.

"It is difficult to know what fuel levels the other guys are on, but I am sure that we have a very good race set-up which will give us a strong race pace for tomorrow."

Ralf Schumacher, the first man on track today after he failed to set a time on Friday, had to be content with 10th position almost a second behind Montoya.

"Although the car was quite well balanced by the end of this morning's practice, it wasn't quite right for qualifying and it felt a bit nervous," said Schumacher. "As a consequence, I could not get it together which was made worse by a little mistake I made early on when I lost some tenths in the first corner.

"So it wasn't a good lap, and as a consequence, maybe I should not be too disappointed with my grid position. It is going to be a tough race here as overtaking is pretty difficult on this circuit."