Williams Confident of Stronger Qualifying

Williams drivers Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya were confident of a better showing in Saturday's qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix despite a slow start in today's practice at the Spa circuit.

Schumacher was the quickest of the two Williams drivers, but the German finished more than a second behind the pace-setting McLarens of Kimi Raikkonen and David Coulthard. The Williams driver was also outpaced by Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello in the Ferrari.

Ralf, however, was pleased with his car's handling, and claimed there was still room to improve.

"I am very happy with my car," admitted Schumacher. "There is nothing which could cause me any real problems. However, I think that there is still room for improvement on the set-up side and we have a couple of things to sort out before we can make our final tyre choice."

Colombian Montoya, on pole in Belgium last year, managed just three laps in the morning session after being hit by a gearbox problem. In the afternoon, Montoya managed to complete a further 16 laps to climb up to eighth position, three places behind his teammate.

"In spite of the fact that we haven't proved to be very competitive today I am quite confident we can improve our performance as I know there is some more to come in the car. On a Friday it is very difficult to judge where everybody really is due to the fuel level so I would not look too much at the lap times.

"Still the balance of my car is not the best but I am sure we can fix it for tomorrow."