Trulli third on the grid at Montreal!

By role
June 13 2004

Jarno Trulli maintained the good form of the Renault F1 team by setting the third best time at yesterday’s qualifying. His teammate, Fernando Alonso, will start fifth today after experiencing some problems due to Sato’s spin.

The pole sitter was Ralf Schumacher on a superb lap being able to edge by a small margin the BAR Honda of Jenson Button.

Third and almost one second behind the pole sitter was Jarno Trulli who edged Ralf’s teammate Juan Pablo Montoya. Trulli was quite sattisfied of being again on the second raw:

"This is the fourth race in a row that I have started from the second row or higher, and that obviously puts us in a strong position for tomorrow. I had a good lap, but couldn't repeat my time from this morning - I think the hotter track conditions may have had something to do with it, and I think we will see some variation in strategies tomorrow. However, third is a good result, and the car has been competitive on the longer runs. We will see what happens tomorrow."

Behind Juan Pablo Montoya finished Alonso who experienced some difficulties on his run after his car had hitted some debris from Sato’s car.

Alonso was still confident of being able to do a good race:

"I am happy with fifth, even though it is not as quick as I did this morning. On my out lap, I hit some debris from Sato's car, and then made a smack mistake at turn 8 on the qualifying lap, and we found that the car was damaged at the end of the run. I had a bit too much understeer to be really quick, but to be in the top five is enough to race well."

Michael Schumacher qualified his car on 6th position what can mean a different strategy for the Italian squad.

Pat Symonds was happy to see the effort of both his drivers:

"We have been quick all weekend, and third and fifth are good starting positions, bearing in mind our strategy. Some of our competitors challenged us hard today but as always, it will not be until well into the race that we will be able to make a definitive judgement as to the relative speeds of the cars. Jarno's lap seemed good, although his straightline speed was down a little, and we need to look at this. Fernando's car was reasonably damaged by the end of the lap, and that undoubtedly cost him time."