Williams bosses say Ralf will have the edge

Montoya's arrival in F1 has been much anticipated since it became known that the former CART champion and Indy 500 winner would replace Jenson Button at Williams. But according to this week's Autosport magazine, team boss Frank Williams and technical director Patrick Head think Schumacher will be on top come the end of the season.

"I would be surprised if Ralf's experience and race craft do not put him ahead of Juan Pablo over a season," said Head. "Ralf is an enormously fast driver and he can find the limit just as quickly as his brother.

"Juan Pablo has integrated into the team very quickly and he has worked hard to do it. He knows that being a driver is so much more than just turning up and driving. But anybody coming into F1 will find it very hard to compete. I would be surprised this season if Ralf did not end up ahead of Juan Pablo."

Drivers who have made the jump from Champ Cars to F1 in recent years have struggled to come to terms with the disparities between the two series, particularly the braking power of the carbon discs and pads used in F1. Neither Michael Andretti nor Alex Zanardi, both former CART champs, managed to make the transition.

However, Montoya is much younger at only 25 and was test driver for Williams only two years ago. But, while Sir Frank is confident of his new signing's ability, he too thinks Montoya will struggle to beat Ralf.

"In my opinion a grand prix car is very, very complex and drivers have to have a data bank in their mind," said Williams. "Juan Pablo does not have that F1 data bank. He knows about 800-900bhp as well as anybody in the world. But there are an awful lot of buttons in the cockpit and there's the telemetry and the memory of what we did last year."

Montoya is testing at Barcelona this week and will complete the final day of running today (Thursday) before the cars leave for Australia. He admitted that he still had some way to go before his first GP on March 4.

"I still have some work to do before my first Formula 1 race start," he said, "but I'm not worried about the first race at all. I'm actually really looking forward to Australia."

Head also believes that despite progress made last year and over the winter with the new car, it is still too early to talk about challenging Ferrari and McLaren for the world championship.

"We have made progress, but there is a way to go until we are in a position to challenge the two top teams," he said. "We still want to be in a position where we can challenge for the championship next year."