BMW WilliamsF1 Team-San Marino GP-first qualifying

San Marino Grand Prix  -  FIRST QUALIFYING
18th April 2003

Weather: Sunny, dry, 20°C Air, 32°C Track

Imola (ITA). BMW WilliamsF1 Team cars qualified today next to each other in
third and fourth position, directly after both Ferraris. Drivers Ralf
Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya will leave the garage for tomorrow¹s final
qualifying as 18th and 17th respectively.

Ralf Schumacher: 3rd
Chassis: FW25 03 (Spare Car FW25 02)
Best time: 1.21,193 min
"I am quite happy with the outcome of my First Qualifying. 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."

Juan Pablo Montoya: 4th
Chassis: FW25 04
Best time: 1.21,490 min
"I am pretty happy because the car was very good.  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 didn¹t 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."

Sam Michael (Chief Operations Engineer, WilliamsF1):
"This is obviously a good start to the weekend. Juan made a mistake on his
lap coming out of the second Rivazza corner and Ralf made a couple of
mistakes in sector three. But our performance is definitely improving. We
have introduced a couple of aerodynamic components for this race and it is
good to see the chassis works well with these changes. We are looking
forward to tomorrow."

Gerhard Berger (BMW Motorsport Director):
"This was the first time we were running the new parts on our cars in normal
track and weather conditions. Our result shows a big step forward. It shows
what the potential of our car is. Both our drivers made some small mistakes
therefore I am very pleased they could achieve positions three and four. On
Sunday, there could be a place on the podium for us."