Williams under no illusions

Montoya broke the lap record and traded fastest laps with race winner Michael Schumacher as he chased the Ferrari driver throughout the race. The Colombian's challenge was thwarted by Rubens Barrichello who proved difficult to pass after Montoya made his final pitstop. Despite having the pace to run with Ferrari, something that proved impossible two weeks ago in Australia, Montoya believes there is much to improve on the FW26. Particularly since the Malaysian climate played to the strengths of Michelin's tyres.

"It's very early days," said Montoya. "The car still needs quite a bit of work. The aim is not to be at their [Ferrari's] level but above it. You need to have a car that is consistent everywhere. We are close in places but we still need to do a bit of work. The guys did a very good job today.

"I was trying to catch Michael [Schumacher] all day and through the race the car and the tyres got better and better. I came out of the last stop and it was a shame I came out behind Rubens. I went to pass and straight away he blocked me. I thought knowing Ferrari it's better to back off than you know... It's better to come home with eight points than be out of the race."

Montoya's second place was BMW WilliamsF1's first podium finish of the season but chief operations engineer Sam Michael agrees that there is still work to do: "We were happier with our race performance than we were in qualifying. However, we still have a lot of work to do on the chassis, engine and tyres. The whole package needs improving and we will be pushing hard to close the gap in the championship. Juan had a good start and drove a fighting but cool-blooded race. Ralf Schumacher struggled after the start and then had an engine failure."

Schumacher's retirement was the first of its sort for the team in 17 races. "The engine failure on Ralf's car was completely unexpected and was not due to the hot temperatures," said BMW Motorsport director Mario Theissen. "We didn't take any big risk either. The failure must have been due to a defective part. We will now have a look at it in Munich in order to identify the part.

"Compared to the season opener in Melbourne this race marked a considerable improvement, despite Ralf suffering an engine failure. Juan Pablo was able to keep up with Schumacher's pace over the race distance which is encouraging for the forthcoming grands prix."

Ralf's race was incident-packed and even before the engine failure he had run into trouble with Jaguar's Mark Webber. "On the third lap I had contact with Webber and my front wing was damaged, causing massive understeer, especially in sector two which was obvious from my times," he explained. "I was trying to overtake Mark but then I realised there was not enough room and I backed off, trying to avoid the collision, however Mark didn't give me enough space."