19,050 reasons for Montoya's record pole.

The BMW WilliamsF1 Team set two records in the today's qualifying session of the 2002 Italian Grand Prix. Juan Pablo Montoya scored his 7th pole position this season (his 10th overall) and team-mate Ralf Schumacher achieved third place.

Juan Pablo set a new record for the fastest average speed lap ever done in a Formula One car, 161.484mph (259.827km/h) which was previously held for 17 years again by a Williams car FW10 driven by Keke Rosberg who set 160.959mph (258,983km/h) at Silverstone in 1985. The second record goes to the BMW V10 engine, which broke through the 19,000rpm barrier today.

Juan Pablo Montoya was happy to be back on pole. "It was a good fight with Ralf and Michael and I am pleased to be on pole. We knew we would be at ease on this track from the start and we haven't needed to change the car too much during the weekend. The tyres are very consistent and we have found a good balance for our car. I hope for my first win this season and for my second here at Monza and in Formula One overall. It is going to be a good race."

Ralf Schumacher was not quite so pleased, but was satisfied with third on the grid. "I couldn't make it today due to a mistake in my third run and also the red flag at the end of the session didn't help," the younger Schumacher explained. "My tyres were not fresh anymore and if you are not in front when you get out of the pits, then it's difficult to improve. Anyway third place is a good position to start tomorrow's race from."

Sam Michael, Chief Operations Engineer at the team, elaborated on the session: "A solid job from Juan who is best placed for tomorrow's race. Ralf was a bit unlucky not to get his last run on fresh tyres. All of the team have done a good job in qualifying and the whole package worked well. The tyre looks consistent for the race and it is great to be starting on pole position. Now we are aiming for a good strategy and race set-up."

BMW Motorsport Director, Gerhard Berger was well revved up after the session: "Monza is a true high-peed circuit where we can make full use of the BMW engine's power. We have brought a further developed engine to Monza. During this qualifying session our engines revved for the first time 19,050rpm. This obviously helped," the Austrian enthused. "Apart from this we saw strong driver performances today. Juan did an excellent lap and Ralf did also well, just like the chassis and the tyres. Our race engines will not rev just as high but even though in terms of power we feel well prepared for tomorrow. But it is a matter of fact that the Ferrari proved to be very strong under race conditions."