Montoya refuses to consider title hopes

Montoya benefited from the first lap accident that eliminated two chief championship rivals - Kimi Raikkonen and his Williams team mate Ralf Schumacher - and then made further strides when Michael Schumacher's late tyre stop turned the champion's eight points into two.

The upshot was that Montoya left Schumacher's home turf just six points behind him in the championship with four races remaining. And Williams is now just two points behind Ferrari in the constructors' championship.

"I'm not going to start thinking about the championship because as we saw today, anything can happen," he said. "One minute Michael is a secure second and then suddenly he's seventh. That can happen to any one of us and reliability is going to be key. You just have to concentrate on scoring points each time and then see how it pans out.

"But, sure, I was surprised at being able to win by more than a minute today. We had a slight problem that caused us to lose a bit of top speed, but I was still pulling away. I think it would have been a lot tougher if Ralf had not been involved in the trouble before the first corner. For me, that is, but the team would have been dominant still.

"The next few races are going to be interesting. We have made good progress and there is no reason why we shouldn't be competitive everywhere."

With Schumacher Jr now 18 points behind his brother in the championship chase and 12 points behind his team-mate (plus the shocking news of his Hungarian GP grid penalty) Montoya now seems to be the main threat to Michael's record sixth title.