Encouraging start for WilliamsF1 at Imola

Ralf said: "I am quite happy with the outcome of my First Qualifying. We have made progress, especially on the mechanical side. For every race we bring new parts for our FW25 now and BMW has built a strong engine which pays off here as well. It was clear that I had some oversteer in a couple of corners which might have cost about two or three tenths of a second. But I am confident we will be able to sort this out by tomorrow."

The first qualifying session at Imola, run under sunny conditions, would see Championship leader McLaren driver Kimi Raikkonen the first to go out. He would set a time of 1m:22 147. Next was team- mate David Coulthard, who would end up one tenth behind Kimi. The Finn would improve on his morning lap times. But by the end of qualifying both Raikkonen and Coulthard would slip down the times to be in eighth and ninth respectively.

Coulthard would comment later by saying: "I don’t really think we got the full potential out of the car during my one flying lap today as we would have expected to be a bit closer to our main rivals. However as always we will look at the data and work together on where we can improve for tomorrow when it really matters.”

The reference time for qualifying was Ralf's time of 1m:21.3 set in the morning practice. Next was Renault's Fernando Alonso but he would finish half a second behind the McLaren drivers. For Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichella he would end up half a second behind Raikkonen. Fisichella lost time in one of the last corners.

Next was Renault driver Jarno Trulli but he would set the slowest time and end up behind Alonso. For BMW WilliamsF1 the first driver to take to the track was Juan Pablo Montoya. After his second fastest time in the morning session it was expected that he would set a quick time. And this is what he did as Juan Pablo would end up over six tenths of a second faster than Raikkonen, taking provisional pole. This was even with a small mistake in the Rivazza corner.

Next would be Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello, who had a difficult opening Friday practice, but he would go faster than by Juan Pablo by four tenths of a second. For Michael Schumacher he would go faster than his team-mate setting a time of 1m:20.628 to secure provisional pole. The times the Ferrari pair must have been very encouraging after their earlier difficulties.

Michael's brother Ralf Schumacher was next on the track, and after his fastest time in practice much was expected of him. But even though he would go three tenths of a second faster than Juan Pablo he was still behind the Ferrari's. He would set a time of 1m:21.193. But this time was still an improvement over his earlier Friday time.

So the front of the grid the first three rows were Ferrari, WilliamsF1, and McLaren. For Sauber driver Heinz Harald Frentzen he would set a quick time to be only three tenths behind Coulthard, a alp time of 1m:20.628 which would see him finish in tenth.

For Jacque Villeneuve he would set a time good enough for fifth but he would quickly drop down to sixth when his team-mate Button would go 35 thousands quicker. He would ultimately finish in seventh. For the second Sauber driver Nick Heidfeld he could set a time that would see him in fourteenth.

For Jaguar the first of their drivers to go out was Mark Webber and after setting the third fastest time in practice he was looking to again set a quick time. He would not disappoint his team with the fifth fastest time. He certainly is showing some good form in these early races of the season.

Next came Toyota's Cristiano Da Matta. Again he would struggle to set a fast time, managing only fifteenth. For Jordan driver Ralph Firman he would push Da Matta down one place when he went fifteenth. For Minardi's Jos Verstappen he could only manage seventeenth while Pizzonia would end up 1.3 seconds behind Webber. For Toyota's Olivier Panis he would finish twelfth, 2 seconds ahead of team-mate Da Matta.

Overall an encouraging start to the weekend for the BMW WilliamsF1 team on a track that they traditionally have done well at.