Pole position in Hungary for Rubens Barrichello

After dominating every practice session then Ferrari were going into the session with a lot of confidence. Michael Schumacher has been in a dominant mood as he shows no let up in his speed. But Rubens Barrichello is doing his best to keep the world champion on his toes. The track temperatures have risen quite a bit from the earlier sessions and this could play into the hands of the Michelin runners who so far have found it tough.

25 minutes into the session and nothing much to report from the Ferrari garage as both drivers talk with their engineers and wait for others to clean the track up a little. Michael Schumacher has asked Ross Brawn to keep of the radio when he is on a hot lap, the German does not want any distractions from his radio while attempting to secure the pole position. Montoya is the first of the big names to put in a lap and he moves into provisional pole but well off the pace the Ferrari’s set in the morning. Ralf Schumacher was to move to the top with a much more competitive lap of 1 minute 14.571 seconds. With that both Ferrari’s trundled down the pit lane and finally took to the track.

Schumacher promptly moves to the front with the fastest lap seen so far this weekend with a 1.14.006. Barrichello however was going faster but had his lap ruined as Jenson Button spun his Renault in front of him and he had to abort his lap and return to the pits. With the teams leaving it so late to appear on track then traffic is a major worry, drivers are unwilling to go offline and onto the dust if they are on a slow out lap. 25 minutes to go and Barrichello is back out on track, hoping this time that he will get a clean lap. Rubens is once again fast in sector 1 and is flying in sector 2 as he is certain to smash Schumacher’s time and that’s what he did, a lap of 1.13.346 for Barrichello and he sets a new standard for the rest to aim for.

Michael is soon back out on track as his earlier time is now only good for third place as Barrichello and brother Ralf are now ahead of him for the time being. Michael is a bit down on Barrichello at split 1, split 2 is the same and he crosses the line with a 1.13.417 and into second place, a great third sector from Schumacher but it was not enough to make up the time lost earlier in the lap. Barrichello’s third run of the day sees him make no improvement on his best time as the track appears to be losing some of its earlier grip. Ralf Schumacher finding this out to his cost as he slides wide and aborts his lap.

Final minutes of the session and the track is very busy as Rubens Barrichello takes to the circuit for his final run of the day. And Schumacher is out as well and he is showing a good improvement on his earlier times but it was not enough for the German as he crosses the line with a 1.13.392 and has to settle for second place. And in any case Barrichello goes quicker with a 1.13.333 to cement his pole position and score a great victory over Michael Schumacher.

So a great session by Ferrari and the perfect result. However Michael will have to start from the dirty side of the grid which may cause a problem for him. But the pace of the Ferrari’s is awesome and the race should be a Ferrari demonstration tomorrow.