After a strong qualifying performance yesterday and a good start to the race for both drivers, the Williams team netted a podium finish with Juan Pablo Montoya in third place.

Ralf Schumacher's race was compromised by a refuelling rig problem during a crucial pit stop, dropping him from fourth position to see him eventually finish in eighth place.

"It was a crazy race because of the changing weather conditions!" exclaimed Montoya in a press release. "My start wasn't too bad and I could keep Michael Schumacher behind me for a while, but then he passed me and started to get away.

"Then the rain came and decided the race as we could not keep pace on our tyres. We have massively improved in the wet, but there is still work to do. I managed to catch up again when it dried, and it was very good to finish and collect some points for the team."

Schumacher ended up eighth thanks to a 29 second long pit stop when the rig failed to work, and then was forced to make an extra visit for more fuel.

"At the beginning in the rain, everything went quite well. We were clearly the best placed Michelin team, and I had a good chance to get some points," he commented.

"But then unfortunately we had a problem with my fuel rig again, like one month ago in Canada - that was it for today, I am very disappointed."

Chief operations engineer Sam Michael added: "A good conclusion for Juan to what was a really difficult race. Juan did well to claim a podium position and the points to go with it in all of the changeable racing conditions.

"It was unfortunate that Ralf's race was compromised by a refuelling rig problem. I also made a mistake by calling the wrong type of tyre for his pit stop because of a lot of radio traffic."

Williams test in Valencia and Monza next week.