Montoya prays for rain to restrain

Juan Pablo Montoya will be crossing his fingers over the next three days that the capricious Italian weather will give him another chance of taking his Williams-BMW into a straight fight against Michael Schumacher's Ferrari in Sunday's San Marino grand prix.

The Colombian driver wants to settle the account after coming off second best in first-lap collisions with Schumacher in both Malaysia and Brazil. Yet if the cool and rainy conditions persist over the weekend, the reigning world champion will emerge as firm favourite to score his fourth victory at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari here in the Italian team's heartland.

A fortnight after ruining his chances in the Brazilian grand prix after knocking his nose cone off in collision with the rear of the Italian car, Montoya may now have to grapple with the prospect of a wet race in which his Michelin rain tyres are unlikely to match the performance of the Bridgestone rubber used by Ferrari.

During recent tests at Valencia, Michelin rain tyres proved more than two seconds a lap slower than Bridgestone's products, a result which, if thrown forward to Sunday's fourth round of the world championship, would leave Williams struggling and Schumacher a clear run to his third win in four races.

The forecast for the Imola area predicts heavy rain for today's first practice session, intermittent showers for tomorrow's qualifying session and light rain for race day. Whatever the weather, Montoya made it clear yesterday that he would not be changing his strategy for Sunday's race.

"Am I upset? I have a point of view [about the Brazil] collision but it seems to have been accepted as a racing accident," he said. "So we will see where we go from here. If it happens [again], it happens."

The fact that both he and Schumacher referred to the incident as a racing accident suggested they had been advised by their teams to draw a line off under this confrontation.

However, asked if he still thought Schumacher's move was ungentlemanly, Montoya replied: "He had made one move down the straight and I thought I could go inside him. I had given him room on the first three corners. Michael wasn't braking because he was still 150 metres from the corner and should have looked before he moved, as far as I understand the rules."

Schumacher said: "I know many people think we will crash again, but I don't necessarily think we will. I am not afraid of something bad happening, but I believe we will get more reasonable with each other rather than more hot-headed."

Meanwhile, Ferrari's No2 Rubens Barrichello vigorously denied speculation that he had been told to expect a pay cut in 2003 if he wants to retain his drive. "It's such bullshit that it's not worth even commenting," said the Brazilian, whose £4m retainer is around one-sixth of Schumacher's.

"Ferrari keeps me here because they love me driving the car. If they didn't want me to drive they could tell me to go home. I've never told anybody what my salary is anyway."

This is a crucial race for Barrichello, in which he will benefit from using the new Ferrari F2002 for the first time. Having crashed in Australia and suffered technical failures while leading in Brazil he desperately needs to score points this weekend, if not for his bank balance then certainly for his credibility.

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