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Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro:
Michael Schumacher 1st, Rubens Barrichello 2nd.
The Ferrari team was dominant in the first qualifying session with Michael
Schumacher two-tenths of a second faster than Rubens Barrichello. Both
drivers made small mistakes on their best laps: Schumacher at the last
corner where he survived a big wobble and Barrichello at the first corner.
Michael's car had to be weighed twice after the session but all was found to
be in order.
"It is very encouraging," said Jean Todt, "Bridgestone has done a very good
job with the tyres, but we know that our positions are only valid on
Saturday. Today does not mean that much.
BMW WilliamsF1 Team: Juan Pablo Montoya 6th, Ralf Schumacher No time.
Although the session ended up rather disappointing, the mood at Williams was
good as the car is handling well.
"We are happy with the balance," said senior operations engineer Sam
Michael. "We should be very competitive here."
Juan Pablo Montoya complained of a little understeer on his qualifying lap
but added that "my general feeling good."
Ralf Schumacher failed to set a time as a result of a spin in Turn Four.
"It was my mistake," he said. "I braked too late and then got oversteer and
could not catch the car. Unfortunately it does not count that my first
sector time was good. I expect us to be between Ferrari and McLaren here."
West McLaren Mercedes: David Coulthard 7th, Kimi Raikkonen 8th.
The McLaren team was not as fast as had been expected.
"The morning session was OK," said managing-director Martin Whitmarsh. "We
were working on the set-up and it went well but this afternoon was a bit
disappointing. we expect the cars to be better tomorrow."
David Coulthard explained that the problem was due to cool conditions.
"This track is all about carrying speed into the corners and in the cool
conditions it was difficult to know where the limit was."
Mild Seven Renault F1 Team: Jarno Trulli 11th, Fernando Alonso 13th.
The Renault team had a new development of the V10 engine for the Austrian
GP.
"Our evolution engine, which is called Specification D, brings a fairly
significant gain in performance," said Renault engineer Denis Chevrier.
"Unfortunately we were not able to reproduce the morning times in the
qualifying session and we need to find out why."
The team however did a lot of laps - amounting to nearly three Grand Prix
distances - and were happy with the reliability
"Our positions today are a bit disappointing," said chief engineer Pat
Symonds, "We need to improve tomorrow
Sauber Petronas: Nick Heidfeld 12th, Heinz-Harald Frentzen 15th.
"Both Nick and Heinz-Harald had problems with oversteer this morning," said
technical director Willy Rampf. "We had to work very hard to get a decent
balance for qualifying. We succeeded to an extent but we still have work to
do."
Jordan Ford: Giancarlo Fisichella 10th, Ralph Firman 19th.
"Our target was to get into the top 10 and this morning it was quite
difficult to get the best set-up," said Giancarlo Fisichella. "We made some
changes for this afternoon and the car was OK. But because the car was
different from this morning I did not feel I could push to the limit. It was
a clean lap but it could have been better."
Ralph Firman crashed at the end of his lap but managed to cross the line and
set a lap time.
"The car was much better than this morning," he said. "It felt really good.
I was pushing hard and perhaps too hard at the last corner. I had a little
too much understeer and went on to the kerb. I kept my foot in it and it
would probably have been OK if I had not gone onto the grass. It was
disappointing but the potential is definitely there."
Jaguar Racing: Mark Webber 3rd, Antonio Pizzonia 9th.
Jaguar again produced a good performance with Mark Webber the fastest
Michelin runner in third place.
"The car was very good," said Webber. "We were a bit worried that the low
temperatures would change the way the car behaved because it can be
sensitive to changes like that but early in my lap I felt that the balance
was still there and I made the most of it. I am pretty happy with that. I
did not expect to be that high up even if we were expecting to be fairly
strong here. I will be surprised if we are third on the grid tomorrow but we
will have to wait and see."
Antonio Pizzonia also had a promising day and ended up ninth fastest. "I had
a few issues with the brakes this morning," he said, "and we could not solve
the problem but the car is good, the balance is there and so there is a lot
more to come."
"This is a good result for the team," said chief engineer Mark Gillan. "We
are surprised by the performance of some of the other teams but we are happy
to be where we are, particularly given where we were last year. The cars are
getting better and better
Lucky Strike BAR Honda: Jacques Villeneuve 4th, Jenson Button 5th.
"The car is working well here," said Jacques Villeneuve. "The fact that it
was not too hot helped us. We had a few problems this morning with the
set-up but we got it sorted out and it was good, at least for one lap this
afternoon. The result is the least we expected here."
Jenson Button reported that he had done a good lap but had a bit of
oversteer.
"Over one lap the car is good but we are missing a bit in the longer runs
and that is something we have to sort out."
European Minardi Cosworth: Jos Verstappen 17th, Justin Wilson 18th.
"We are pretty much where we expected to be," said technical director
Gabriele Tredozzi. "Jos ran the three-plane rear wing whereas Justin stuck
with a two-plane. We have a few other new bits on the car as well and these
seem to be working."
Panasonic Toyota Racing: Olivier Panis 14th, Cristiano da Matta 16th.
The Toyota team was a bit frustrated with the result of first qualifying.
"We spent a lot of time this morning we struggled to get a good set-up,"
said Gustav Brunner. "It did not help that Cristiano had to spend time
learning the circuit because he has never been here before and as a result
we struggled. But we felt we made an improvement on both cars this afternoon
even if it was not necessarily reflected in the lap times."
Bridgestone: Hisao Suganuma: "We experienced quite a bad graining
this morning due to the track being very green but then conditions improved.
We are pleased to have achieved a good balance which is so important here.
We are confident for the race."
Michelin: Pierre Dupasquier: "It is sometimes difficult to analyse
the times on Friday because if all the cars are running with low fuel they
are not necessarily running race tyres. The choices tomorrow may be
different. We have four types of tyre and one of them seems to be the clear
choice." |
