After a strong qualifying performance, which saw Juan Pablo Montoya take pole and Ralf Schumacher secure P2, the Williams team could not benefit from their grid positions due to handling problems.

Ralf Schumacher scored three more points by finishing in fourth position but Juan Pablo Montoya spun off, hitting David Coulthard in the process.

"On one side I am disappointed with position four, on the other side I must confess that we knew we were going to have a very hard race against Ferrari," Schumacher said in a press release.

"I had a good start and passed Juan on the first corner because I started on new tyres. Unfortunately I couldn't stay in the lead for very long. Ferrari is simply extremely strong in the race, at present.

"My car was incredibly difficult to drive as we had some tyre problems from early in the race. I must say though that this doesn't depend on Michelin, but on us getting the car right for the tyres."

Montoya was also disappointed to see a third pole position fail to produce results. "For the third time in a row I didn't finish the race after being on pole," he lamented. "At the start I lost the lead to Ralf who passed me at the first hairpin. I didn't try to protect my position and risk sending the two of us out of the race.

"Then I was struggling massively with the handling of my car. The car was almost undriveable but I still had some laps to go before my pit-stop.

"Eventually I couldn't help spinning coming into the first corner and I unfortunately hit Coulthard who was close behind me, putting an early end to our race. When I came back to the paddock I apologised to David."

Chief Operations Engineer Sam Michael added: "We had a poor performance today. We had a similar problem to the Monaco race where we had extreme wear on the rear tyres of both cars.

"We had to pull Ralf's pit-stop forward by a long way but Juan didn't make it. Unfortunately he took David Coulthard off and he apologised. We have a lot of work to do and it's clear where our problem lies."