Williams with work still to do

"After this morning's Free Practice, when things didn't go very well, we managed to improve the set up of my car for the First Qualifying session," said Ralf. "I am really happy with my time today even if there's still some work ahead of us for the Final Qualifying.

"The entrance to the Rascasse corner, which has been changed since last year has improved and it now has a better flow. Definitely they did a good job. Also the newly asphalted parts are an improvement infact all of the circuit could well undergo the same treatment!"

Montoya struggled with speed and handling issues. The Colombian won pole last year but couldn't drag the same kind of performance out of his FW25 this time round. "We had a difficult free practice session this morning, but my car improved throughout it and I hoped I could get something better out of it this afternoon," he said.

"I am definitely not happy with my qualifying position. The car wasn't as fast as it should have been and I also experienced a problem at the fourth turn where I could not slow down the car quickly enough, which made me lose some time. Let's see how we can improve for Saturday's qualifying which is definitely more important than today's."

BMW Motorsport director Gerhard Berger seemed relatively unconcerned about the performance. "The first results don't really mean too much in Monaco. The grip of the track can change a lot before Saturday's final qualifying," he said. "The gap to the best Renault driver - the quickest car today on Michelin tyres - is about 0.15s which means that there's still some more to gain for us.

"Our drivers set similar times but I believe they both can achieve much more."