Bridgestone .. strong in Spanish qualifying

A thrilling final qualifying session in front of a capacity crowd at the Circuit de Catalunya this afternoon saw the Ferrari pair of Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa go head-to-head with the Renaults of Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella. It was what the roaring crowd wanted to see and although the Ferrari drivers just missed out and will line up on the second row of the grid, their qualifying and practice pace suggests we can expect a strong performance from them in tomorrow's 66-lap race. In fact Michael Schumacher set the fastest overall time in qualifying today with a 1m14.637. Panasonic Toyota Racing's Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli also qualified well in sixth and seventh places respectively, putting them in a strong position for the Spanish Grand Prix. The Williams drivers qualified 11th and 13th while the MF1 Racing and Super
Aguri F1 drivers will line up in places 18 to 21 respectively.

Hisao Suganuma, Technical Manager - Bridgestone Motorsport, said: "We had a few showers before this morning's practice session but that did not actually affect the track or the teams' plans too much. All the Bridgestone teams completed their set-up and qualifying checks. We knew they had the potential to be strong and we saw this in qualifying. The Williams drivers unfortunately missed out on the top ten today but we expect them to have a strong race. It was good to see the four Ferrari and Toyota cars in the final qualifying phase and although pole is always preferable we are happy with the final qualifying results. We're expecting our teams to be competitive tomorrow."

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Ross Brawn, Technical Director - Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, said: "That was a very exciting qualifying session! It certainly kept the engineers and drivers very busy. Felipe and Michael both did a very good job and I think we'll see that in the race tomorrow. Of course, I would have preferred at least P2 but the Bridgestone tyres and the car are working very well and we have good reason to be optimistic for tomorrow's race."

Pascal Vasselon, Senior General Manager Chassis - Panasonic Toyota Racing, said: "This morning we opted to stay on used tyres so it was difficult to say exactly how we'd get on this afternoon but qualifying went well. At the moment it looks good from a tyre point of view. Of course the race will be another story but there is no real reason to worry. So far it looks like a strong Bridgestone weekend."