California, Dec 07: After two years in Formula one, Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya predicts better times for his Williams team in the fight against Ferrari's supremacy. Juan Pablo Montoya has been spending the pre-season doing promotional work together with his father Pablo, visiting schools and talking to fans. At the end of only his second season in Formula 1, Juan Pablo Montoya secured third place in the 2002 FIA Formula 1 Drivers' World Championship, just behind Ferrari's Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello. "It was a good season and I finished third in the drivers championship and that I think it's very important. I think it's a big thing for me and probably at the moment we can say best of the rest because you couldn't really think about being close to a Ferrari even being even halfway through the season," the 27 year old Colombian said recently. Although Grand Prix victory eluded him in 2002, at the Italian Grand Prix he broke the record for the fastest driver ever to lap a Formula 1 circuit, achieving an average speed of 161.170mph (257.872 kilometres per hour).


Already looking forward to next year, he promises that Williams F1 will give Ferrari a run for their money in 2003. But he also admitted their main rivals are many steps ahead of Williams.


"I don't look to the way Michael drives to be honest or how he is driving. You look at the Ferrari -- they have to put half of the effort that we put into it, not only myself, everybody in the grid. You look at the last race, a second a lap quicker in the race and they're going 'vrum, vrum'," he said mimicking the movement of a driver on the steering wheel.


"Because the car is so balanced and is so consistent, they go into a corner, they steer into a corner, they can go wherever they want. At least, it looked that way, where else as soon as we go in, the front is going to go, the rear is gonna go and the platform is not as stable," Montoya explained.


The Colombian failed to win a race, finishing the championship with 50 points while second place Rubens Barrichello of Brazil ended up on 77 and Michael Schumacher scored 144 to take his fifth world title and his third with Ferrari.


Montoya admitted his passion for rough circuits where drivers have to do a lot of personal effort and confessed that one of his favourite tracks is Interlagos in Sao Paulo, Brazil.


"There are races, you know. I got for instance to Brazil and twice I've been there -- and it's a track that is actually tasty, it's like that... You know, it's in your mind that you want to go 'hot-air- and is bumpy and you want to go fastest through there, it's one of those tracks."

As he met students from a school in California, Montoya showed how much he is a product of the technological age. His passion for gadgets of all types started with the first computer he got in 1989, featuring his favourite video game -- motor racing.


"There's been a long time that I have been involved with computers, I have a MP3, little cameras, little printers, telephones, all the latest gadgets and I like it."


Bureau Report