Williams Pair Upbeat after Strong Start

Williams drivers Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya are confident of a strong showing in tomorrow's grid-deciding qualifying session for the San Marino Grand Prix after a promising start to their weekend today.

"I am quite happy with the outcome of my first qualifying," said Schumacher, who posted the third fastest time behind the two Ferraris. "We have made progress, especially on the mechanical side. For every race we bring new parts for our FW25 now and BMW has built a strong engine which pays off here as well.

"It was clear that I had some oversteer in a couple of corners which might have cost about two or three tenths of a second. But I am confident we will be able to sort this out by tomorrow."

Schumacher, who celebrated his first win at Imola two years ago, finished ahead of Colombian teammate Juan Pablo Montoya as the Williams team returned to form as World Champion Ferrari's closest challengers.

Ralf's time was 0.565 slower than his brother Michael, who topped the times with the Ferrari, while Montoya was nearly a second behind the World Champion.

"I am pretty happy because the car was very good," Montoya admitted. "I think I could have been quicker but after what happened in Brazil, today I decided to take the more conservative option. After I saw the sector signs I knew that I didn't have to push too hard.

"Coming out of the second Rivazza, I went on the power and I had some oversteer so I had to get off the throttle and lost a little bit of time."