Team Rundown Friday Qualifying Italian GP

By Andrew Hooper
September 13 2003

	Team Rundown
	Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro: Rubens Barrichello 2nd, Michael Schumacher 3rd. After the trials of Hungary things were looking better for Ferrari with Rubens Barrichello second quickest in the first qualifying session. "Being the first car to run is always a nightmare," said Ross Brawn, "because the supporting races make the road dusty. But Rubens showed the potential of the car and both the car and the tyres are competitive." Michael Schumacher reckoned that the track was to blame for his time being nearly half a second slower than that of his team mate. "I was the track cleaner again," he said. "More and more it seems that being first out in qualifying is a definite disadvantage. Despite that I am happy because Rubens showed what was possible with the car." BMW WilliamsF1 Team: Juan Pablo Montoya 1st, Ralf Schumacher No time. It was a day of mixed fortunes for Williams with Montoya fastest but Ralf Schumacher failing to set a time. "In the morning session I did not like the balance of the car," said Montoya. "We made some changes and this afternoon I was happy. It is ideal for me that tomorrow Michael and Kimi will run before me in qualifying but in the end what counts is the race." Ralf Schumacher overshot the first chicane and his time was removed by the stewards. "I just overdid it," he said. "And to be honest the performance in the second and third sectors was poor as well so we need to take a good look at the data and find out what is wrong." The team is still confident for the race. "The pace and the tyres are both OK," said Sam Michael. West McLaren Mercedes: Kimi Raikkonen 5th, David Coulthard 14th. David Coulthard was again overshadowed in qualifying by his team mate but the Scotsman said that this was due to a technical problem. "There was a glitch in the second chicane," he said. "It was only a small problem but it cost me a lot of time." The team felt that the cars will be on the pace this weekend. "Clearly we did not do as well as we could have done today as both drivers were slower than in the morning session but we are still confident that the cars will be competitive this weekend. We are concentrating on the race set-up." Mild Seven Renault F1 Team: Jarno Trulli 7th, Fernando Alonso 8th. "No problems today," said Jarno Trulli. "The balance is pretty good butwe still need to get a bit faster. It is pretty much what we expected today." Fernando Alonso complained that his car felt very nervous. "It was a problem in the chicanes," he said, "and I also had understeer on my qualifying lap. We need to improve the overall grip." Sauber Petronas: Heinz-Harald Frentzen 9th, Nick Heidfeld 12th. It was a good effort from Heinz-Harald Frentzen. "I am pretty happy with that," he said. "We changed the car for this afternoon and the balance was better than it was this morning and I am happy with my lap time even though I got a bit sideways in the Parabolica. Still, I know we can do even better." Nick Heidfeld was not as happy. "We changed the car after the morning and perhaps we did a bit too much. It was more difficult to drive." Jordan Ford: Giancarlo Fisichella 16th, Zsolt Baumgartner 17th. "It is frustrating for me because this is my home Grand Prix," said Fisichella, "and to be 3.5 seconds off the pole time is disappointing, particularly when we do not know why. I was not happy with my car this morning and so I used the T-car. Hopefully I will go back to the race car tomorrow." Zsolt Baumgartner was learning fast. "I am happy this afternoon because I did the same time in the afternoon as I managed in the morning," he said. "I hope to improve tomorrow. My goal is to close the gap between myself and Giancarlo." Jaguar Racing: Mark Webber 6th, Justin Wilson 15th. It was another impressive qualifying for Mark Webber. "I am a bit surprised to be that good," he said. "We were struggling a bit this morning compared to how well we went in the test. We are not out of the woods yet but I am very happy with my qualifying lap. It was very good. The Bridgestones seem to be blistering a bit so we will see what happens in the race." It was a disappointing session for Justin Wilson. "It was a disappointing lap," said team boss David Pitchforth. "We need to look at the data about that. We had a very good test session when we did a lot of laps and it was complicated because we had a lot to do and so we had to combine the tests. It worked out and we learned a lot. And Mark's lap this afternoon was really good. The performance is there over one lap but we still have to work on the race set-up." Lucky Strike BAR Honda: Jenson Button 11th, Jacques Villeneuve 13th. It was a disappointing qualifying session for BAR. "We are not very happy," said Geoff Willis. "The danger is to make comparisons with the times that were set in testing here but even so we should have been quicker than this. Mainly the problem is one of grip. Jacques lost 10 minutes this morning and that may have cost him a little bit because he did not get out on low fuel." European Minardi Cosworth: Nicolas Kiesa 18th, Jos Verstappen No time. "It is a bad day for us," said team boss Paul Stoddart. "We changed Jos's throttle control system as a precaution after the free practice. When we fired up the engine for qualifying it stopped and the ECU shut it down. We tried again and the same thing happened. By then the time to go out was gone. I suspect there was some stupid wiring problem. It is a shame because Jos was fired up after this morning." Nicolas Kiesa lost time in the morning with a gearbox problem and that lost him running time. The team had some new aerodynamic parts for the race but it is not yet decided if they will be used tomorrow. Panasonic Toyota Racing: Cristiano da Matta 4th, Olivier Panis 10th. It was a good day for Toyota. "Let's put it this way," said Gustav Brunner. "We are happy but we were hoping that both cars would be right up there. Cristiano did very, very well but Olivier needs to improve the aerodynamic balance of his car. At the speeds here at Monza, small things can make a big difference. We have good hopes for both tomorrow." Bridgestone: Hisao Suganuma: "It is not bad to have cars second and third in these conditions. The track was not at its best when Michael came out and it was quite windy. I think Ferrari's good position showed the performance of our tyres over a single lap. It is also encouraging to see HH in ninth." Michelin: Pascal Vasselon: "Today's performances are not a surprise because we have tested a lot last week at Monza and we have made a lot of progress. Everything went as planned and we are satisfied with the way things have gone. We are happy from an engineering point of view that we had the solutions to the problems faced in recent days."