BMW WilliamsF1 Team-Austrian GP-Final Qualifying

Austrian Grand Prix  -  FINAL QUALIFYING
17th May 2003

Weather: Sunny, dry, Air/Track temperature 19/32°C (Schumacher), 19/27°C
(Montoya)

Spielberg (AUT). The BMW WilliamsF1 Team will line up 3rd and 10th on
tomorrow¹s grid for the Austrian Grand Prix. After spinning off during
yesterday¹s first qualifying session, Ralf Schumacher has managed to reclaim
some of ground conceded on Friday, but the team has been heartened by the
3rd fastest performance of Juan Pablo Montoya which augurs well for a
positive performance from the team tomorrow.

Juan Pablo Montoya:    3rd
Chassis: FW25 06 
Best time: 1.09.391min
"After following a different philosophy with our set-up today, we have been
fairly consistent through practice, warm up and qualifying doing 1.09.3
laps, so I think this was as quick as the car could go in qualifying without
taking any risks. It is difficult to know what fuel levels the other guys
are on, but I am sure that we have a very good race set-up which will give
us a strong race pace for tomorrow."

Ralf Schumacher:    10th
Chassis:  FW25 05 (Spare car: FW25 04)
Best time: 1.10.279 min
"After I had spun off during yesterday¹s first qualifying, today I had to
cope with the disadvantage of being first on the track, and of course there
is less grip at the start of the session.  Although the car was quite well
balanced by the end of this morning¹s practice, it wasn¹t quite right for
qualifying and it felt a bit nervous. As a consequence, I could not get it
together which was made worse by a little mistake I made early on when I
lost some tenths in the first corner. So it wasn¹t a good lap, and as a
consequence, maybe I should not be too disappointed with my grid position.
It is going to be a tough race here as overtaking is pretty difficult on
this circuit."

Sam Michael (Chief Operations Engineer, WilliamsF1):
"With Juan, we are close to the front row and we are quite confident of both
drivers having a good race tomorrow with the strategy we are on. We are
looking forward to see how the cars will perform in the race."

Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director):
"All in all it was a good qualifying session for the team. Ralf had to cope
with the handicap of being the roadsweeper, so we could not have expected
much more than tenth place. Juan Pablo was very quick but unfortunately he
did not get the first corner 100% correct, or he would have been fighting
for pole today. However, 3rd is a good position from which to start the
race."