Montoya wants winning Williams send-off

Juan Pablo Montoya believes he is in pole position to win the world title in his final season as a Williams driver.

The Colombian will move to McLaren in 2005 but is nevertheless determined to crown a successful stint at Williams with the world championship.

Montoya joined the Didcot-based team in 2001 as replacement for Jenson Button after winning the CART series and the Indianapolis 500 in the US.

He has since gone on to win three F1 races and challenged for the title last season, just falling short of six-time champion Michael Schumacher.

However, Montoya is keen to go all the way next season and believes Williams’ BMW engine will give him an advantage.

He said: “BMW has done a great job and I think we will be enjoying a good engine advantage next year.

“At the beginning of last season we never thought about winning the title so you have to say that we have achieved a massive improvement over the course of the season.

“My goal for a season is usually to be better than the year before, and I managed to do so. If you want to be competitive in all areas you have to improve every single day.”

Williams will resume pre-season testing today at Jerez in Spain along with the majority of the F1 grid.

Minardi are the only team to be testing elsewhere – Jordan are taking a break - and they will put a trio of young hopefuls through their paces at Vallelunga near Rome.

The perennial strugglers are yet to announce either driver for next season, although Gianmaria Bruni is expected to be confirmed soon, and they will get a closer look at three candidates.

Finland’s Heikki Kovalainen, Argentina’s Jose Maria Lopez and Italy’s Fabrizio del Monte will all be on show in testing with Minardi boss Paul Stoddart hoping to unearth a potential star of the future.

He said: “The driver evaluation is simply a further example of the team’s ongoing, and highly successful policy of seeking out the best young talents on the motor racing scene and introducing them to F1 in a controlled and responsible way.

“It is obviously an approach that has paid off handsomely, as we saw at Monza this year, when eight of the 20 competitors on the starting grid for the Italian Grand Prix were either former or current Minardi drivers.”