Montoya Surprised to be on Front Row

Juan Pablo Montoya said he was surprised at driving his Williams to a place on the front row alongside Ferrari's pole-sitter Michael Schumacher ahead of tomorrow's Spanish Grand Prix.

Williams struggled in the practice sessions in the build-up to qualifying before Montoya stormed into second place on the grid, although his time was 0.61 seconds slower than Schumacher. Montoya, however, is confident his Williams will allow him to challenge the German World Champion.

"On the basis of Friday, yes, I am surprised to be on the front row," said Montoya. "It was really, really, really bad. It was very hard to drive the car. But we did some changes and we were pretty confident the changes were going to be competitive and straight away the car was good so, yeah, I'm very pleased, very pleased.

"We will see what happens tomorrow, but, you know, we came around by quite a long way and it's nice. You can always go quicker. I probably would have been a bit closer with a better set-up but it doesn't matter, I am pretty pleased. Now I'm hoping for some good racing."

Montoya's second place on the grid marks the Colombian's first front-row qualification since last season's Japanese Grand Prix.