Montoya finishes 3rd after Australian qualifying

The second phase of qualifying for the 2004 Australian GP would see the cars run in the reverse order from their first qualifying times. This would be Minardi's Zolt Baumgartner run first. He would set a time of 1m:30.681, hardly a benchmark time for the other drivers. His team-mate Bruni would not even make a second run with his car suffering technical problems. He will start from the back of the grid. Jordan's Pantano would go fastest but he would quickly be outpaced by Toyota's Cristiano da Matta. Next was Jordan's Nick Heidfeld. He would finish in second but some two seconds ahead of his team-mate. After a disappointing first run Renault's Jarno Trulli would set the quickest time so far.

For Jaguar's Christian Klein he would make a mistake on his second run and take to the grass. He would abort his run and return to the pits. He also will have to start the race from the rear of the grid. It was later found that he was having a problem with his gearbox.

Another driver to have problems was Toyota's Olivier Panis. He was not able to take to the track, possibly as a result of Klein not completing a full lap. It looks like the Toyota team may have been caught out somewhat. Massa was next and would be half a second of the pace, moving into second to be 0.7sec behind Trulli. For BAR's Takuma Sato he would pull out a great lap to go fastest 0.4 sec ahead of Trulli.

For Sauber's Giancarlo Fisichella he would make a mistake at the frist corner running wide and would lose a second but after recovering time in the second sector would move into fifth. Next was local hero Mark Webber and the crowd would erupt when he went fastest to beat Sato's time by tenth of a second.

For Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello he would set the quickest time in all sectors to take provisional pole by over a second from Webber. This would be the quickest time set at the Albert Park circuit. Next was Renault's Alonso who would go second fastest. BAR's Jenson Button would be out and was 0.2 sec slower than Rubens in the first sector. He would set an impressive 1m:24.998, second fastest, to show that they have some pace in the new BAR 006.

David Coulthard was next out. He would be down 0.6 sec on Rubens after the first sector. He would continue to lose time. But he would have a major moment on the final corner with his car running across the grass and been pitched into wild ride before returning to the track. He would finish in eighth. Team-mate Raikkonen would also have a moment in the first corner and would finish in seventh 1.8 seconds behind Rubens.

Next came Ralf. He would be down 0.6sec after sector one. Not good news. He would lose another tenth in sector two. He would only find a time good enough for sixth. Brother Michael was next out and he would be ahead of Rubens after sector one. Two tenths after sector two. He was putting in a clean and very fast lap. A time of 1m:24.408 would see him take provisional pole. Now it all came down to whether Juan Pablo could knock off Michael.

Plus 0.001 after the first split. He would be one tenth down after sector two. But he would not match his Ferrari rival in the final sector to finish third. He did exactly the same time as Jenson Button. This would be Michael's fifty sixth career pole.

Ralf would say that there was it was fine and that there was no difference with car between the two qualifying runs so he was quite surprised by not setting a quick time.

When he was asked what the car was like Juan Pablo said: "A lot better. I think you know there has been a bit of tradition at Williams to always to get to a circuit and take a bit of time to get everything working and it seems that out tyres on Fridays struggle a little bit but as the track rubbers in they get better and better. I was a bit surprised after first qualifying ... I was amazed at there lap time. I knew from the first qualifying that I could go a bit quicker and I just tried a bit too hard through the fast chicane and i went in too fast and in the fast right hander just understeered off and I had to get off the throttle."

Like 2003 there is still uncertainty as to what fuel the cars were running with so the situation is still unclear as to whether or not Ferrari has a clear margin over their rivals.