Juan upmanship a real danger for Ralf

Analysts agree that Ralf 's performance tends to mirror that of the car. When it is handling poorly, he becomes discouraged and falls back. Correspondingly, when the car is handling well, Ralf has the ability to put it on pole and then lead from start to finish, as he did 12 days ago in Magny-Cours.

Montoya, on the other hand, has peculiarly performed in the opposite way. He drives better when the car is poor and not so well when it's good. Given that the Williams FW25 is currently utterly sensational, Ralf has the upper hand - and Montoya hates it. He reacted angrily on the car-to-pit radio at Magny-Cours after failing to get out in front of Ralf during the final pitstops of the French Grand Prix.

Perhaps this explains a comment from Montoya after that race, in which he claimed that the British Grand Prix would be "a wake-up call'' to the team.

Many were puzzled by his words. The general opinion is that dry weather - which is forecast for tomorrow and Sunday at Silverstone - will favour Williams, because their Michelin tyres far outperform Ferrari's Bridgestones unless it is wet.

It would be typical of Formula One's cloak-and-dagger political doublespeak if Montoya was secretly relying on the British weather to do its worst on race day, in the hope that Ralf would, as usual, be discouraged by the car's handling.

In that case, his forecast "wake-up call'' would not be about the general state of the Williams challenge, but a new reminder about which of the two Williams drivers is the more gifted. Montoya is only six points behind Ralf in the drivers' championship, after all.

But in any case, Williams's chief operations engineer has dispelled any doubts about the car's form. Sam Michael says improvements made to the car and tyres in Barcelona during testing last week have left the team in a position to challenge for a win.

"Even if we cannot dominate like we did in the last few grands prix, we will certainly be in there for the fight,'' said Michael. "I am pretty sure no one will do to us what we did to them in the last few races, although equally I cannot see us walking away with it at half a second a lap.

"What would hurt us most is if either car failed to finish, even though our last four races have been very good. If you can't win you have to be on the podium or very near it because of the way the points system works this season.

"If Ralf wins all the remaining races and Michael is second, Ralf will only win the title by one point. It shows that if you have one bad result then the costs are massive.''