Montoya criticises 'negative' Ferrari

Montoya is confident Williams will be competitive

Juan Pablo Montoya is looking to benefit from Ferrari's decision to start the Formula One season with last year's car.

The Williams driver believes Ferrari's move will hand his team a crucial advantage, even though Michael Schumacher will be racing the car that won last year's title.

Ferrari will run last year's car in the first race of the season in Melbourne this weekend because of reliability concerns over their new model.

I can't say that I am going to challenge for the title

Juan Pablo Montoya

"I think it's a negative move - but a positive one for us," said Montoya.

"If you think about it, they are starting off the season with last year's car.

"If we had brought last year's car we would have been 10th on the grid this weekend."

Montoya is pleased with the way his pre-season testing has gone but he is playing down the chances of Williams replacing Ferrari as the team to beat.

"I think we have made a pretty good step from last year to this year with the car," he said.

"But we won't know until Saturday how much progress we have made compared with everybody else.

Will Schumi be quick enough in an old car?

"There is still more work we can do on the car, but I am confident we will be very competitive.

"But I can't say that I am going to challenge for the title.

"We don't know if we are going to have to challenge Ferrari because we have not tested with them, so we don't know how quick they are.

"But we have tested with McLaren and it is going to be a very interesting fight with them.

"It's very hard to say who is quicker at the moment, we look to be very even and both cars are on the same tyre."

Montoya also said that his famously cool relationship with team-mate Ralf Schumacher, the world champion's younger brother, was improving all the time.

"Over the winter we pushed each other even harder than last year and we spent a lot of time with the engineers working and working on the car," he said.