Williams Duo Rue Tricky Conditions

Both Williams drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher failed to shine in today's first qualifying session for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Colombian Montoya, winner of the last Monaco Grand Prix for Williams, tracked over the grass at turn eight, losing a lot of time and finishing down in 12th position more than six seconds off the pace.

"Not really the ideal condition for a qualifying lap, today," said Montoya. "We decided to go for the full wet tyre at the very last minute after we saw the other Michelin drivers who had started before me were struggling on shallow wet tyres, but it wasn't good either because it was raining too hard.

"I had poor grip and the handling of the car was very difficult. We can work on this and improve our car for tomorrow, when track conditions could possibly be very different."

Like his teammate, Ralf Schumacher also struggled to get to terms with the conditions and could only set the 15th quickest time.

"I was quite unlucky in my fast lap, as just before I went out onto the track it started to rain even harder," he said. "If you compare my times to those of Jarno Trulli who ran right after me, he was three seconds slower, so it is easy to figure out just how difficult it was to keep the car on the track in that phase.

"In the morning's free practice, when it started raining hard, I was actually one of the quickest. This means that we should be capable of being competitive in such weather conditions, even if this wasn't evident in today's qualifying."