BMW WilliamsF1 Team-French GP-1st Qualifying

French Grand Prix  -  FIRST QUALIFYING                      4th July 2003

Weather: Overcast, wet track drying out. Temp: 18°C  Air,  19°C Track

Magny-Cours (FRA). Both the drivers of the BMW WilliamsF1 Team had to run
the First Qualifying session of the French Grand Prix under difficult
conditions. Following a wet morning, the track started to dry out at the
beginning of the qualifying session. Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya
were third and fourth out on the circuit and had to leave the garage on
wet-tyres. They qualified 18th and 15th respectively.

Juan Pablo Montoya:    15th
Chassis: FW25 06 (Spare car FW 04)
Best time: 1. 28,988min
"Considering the circumstances, I am pretty pleased with my qualifying lap
today. My car was good and it worked fairly well. In the Free Practice
session I wasn¹t very quick because I wasn¹t very comfortable with the car
but it definitely improved for qualifying. Ralf was pretty much quicker than
me all morning and to be faster than him in qualifying is obviously positive
for me. In the last sector I lost a lot of time through the fast chicane due
to the handling of the car, which wasn¹t how I expected it to be there, so I
had to drive under the limit. We have to wait and see what is going on with
the weather but I think we are looking pretty competitive and consistent .
After all what really matters is where everyone qualifies tomorrow, not so
much today."

Ralf Schumacher:    18th
Chassis: FW25 07  
Best time: 1.29,327min
"We had no luck with the weather, but one has to take things as they come
and always try to get the best out of a difficult situation. My car had
slight understeer but in the first two sectors my time was better than Kimi
Raikkonen¹s, who had gone out just before me on the same Michelin wet tyres.
However, in the third sector, I had traction problems which cost me quite a
lot of time. Now I am concentrating on the decisive final qualifying
tomorrow."

Sam Michael (Chief Operations Engineer, WilliamsF1):
"It was a wet session for us and it was the luck of the draw where you
qualified. The car was pretty strong in this morning¹s Free Practice session
though. Anyway, we are just looking forward to tomorrow and to some dry
running and we are quite positive about the race on Sunday."

Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director):
"Today¹s qualifying was obviously hampered by bad weather conditions. The
first 15 cars went out on the track on either full- or shallow wet tyres and
the last five cars could even wear dry tyres. Actually, the field was turned
upside down, which will result in a very exciting final qualifying tomorrow.
Our drivers made the best out of the situation and we had no technical
problems at all."