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 Austrian GP: Qualifying Report

RB TAKES SECOND POLE OF '02

Photographs to follow shortly...

Rubens Barrichello scored his fifth career and second pole position of 2002 with an excellent performance this afternoon in qualifying for tomorrow’s Austrian Grand Prix at Zeltweg.

The Brazilian driver, who was boosted by the extension of his Ferrari driving contract during the week, drove solidly throughout the session. He made refining improvements to his car and kept his head after the session stoppage midterm when marshals had to clean up oil left on the circuit by Jarno Trulli’s blown Renault engine.

The lost time was added to the session after it was restarted, taking it to 2:10 pm.

Barrichello improved his mark several times after the restart and ended with a 1:08.082, which was over two tenths faster than the BMW-Williams of Ralf Schumacher. The German benefited from a good package and his Michelin tyres worked solidly.

Brother Michael in the Ferrari did not have such a good session and will start from third on the grid tomorrow. He had tried to challenge for the top time but had issues with his car, even a change to the t-car in the final stages failed to help the German make serious ground on his team-mate or his brother.

The second BMW-Williams driver Juan-Pablo Montoya was fourth and the first man outside the one minute eight time bracket. The Colombian had technical problems early on with his race car and was forced to qualify in the t-car.

Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld put in another good showing to set the fifth quickest time, and he will be thrilled to have eclipsed former Sauber team-mate Kimi Raikkonen. The Finnish driver has been hanging in there in the McLaren Mercedes throughout the weekend so far.

Heidfeld’s current team-mate Felipe Massa was seventh, followed by David Coulthard who unsurprisingly could not make serious impact, while Olivier Panis continued his strong progress to take ninth.

Toyota also fared very well, veteran Finn Mika Salo taking the tenth best time with a 1:09.661. Arrows too showed its strong developmental progress with Frentzen and Bernoldi 11th and 12th, ahead of Jenson Button, Allan McNish, Giancarlo Fisichella, and Jarno Trulli, who managed to qualify in the Renault spare.

Jacques Villeneuve could not mirror team-mate Panis’ performance and had to settle for a lowly 17th, ahead of Jordan’s Takuma Sato, Pedro de la Rosa and Eddie Irvine.

The Minardis of Mark Webber and Alex Yoong will line up on the last row of the grid but were comfortably within the 107% cut off.

Qualifying Times

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