WilliamsF1 Team Comments Saturday Qualifying

By Andrew Hooper
July 5 2003

	French GP Saturday - Team Comments
	Even though the BMW WiliamsF1 Team's drivers were amongst the first out on circuit this afternoon, they both qualified on the first row of the grid for tomorrow's French Grand Prix. Ralf Schumacher achieved his 3rd pole of the season, bringing his career total up to 4. This is the second time this year that Ralf and Juan Pablo will line up on the front row of the grid, the last time being Canada.
	Juan Pablo Montoya "All in all it was a positive qualifying for me. If you look at this morning's times, I was about seven tenths slower than Ralf and it looks like I have now closed the gap to him slightly. The car wasn't handling particularly well during my fast lap causing me to lose some time. I'm pleased Ralf and myself are on the front row and I think that the Michelin tyres have the upper hand over the Bridgestone's here."
	Ralf Schumacher "I'm delighted with my pole especially when I think that I went out fourth when the track had not reached it's optimum condition. My lap was reasonably clean but it wasn't the best lap I've done due to some understeer in the third sector of the lap. It's obviously positive to be nearly half a second in front of my brother's Ferrari and Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren Mercedes. I hope we will convert this 1-2 into an even better result than we had in Canada, where we finished 2nd and 3rd."
	Dr Mario Theissen BMW Motorsports Director "For the fourth race weekend in a row we are very competitive in qualifying. It reflects all the hard work that is being done by the team and it's partners. In Magny-Cours, the aerodynamics play an essential role so it's obvious WilliamsF1 have made enormous progress during the last few weeks. Another part of the success belongs to our tyre partners, Michelin. In free practice it looked like the car's fast but also both of our drivers do very well here, the small gap between their times shows this."
	Sam Michael Chief Operations Engineer WilliamsF1 "It was again a good effort by the team to put both cars on the front row again after Canada. The car is really competitive here and this is a credit to all the people working in the factories in Grove and in Munich. We are definitely looking forward to a strong race. It's also great for Michelin to be on the front row of the race for their home Grand Prix."