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 San Marino GP: Qualifying Report

SCHUMACHER SNATCHES POLE AT IMOLA

Barrichello wasn't that disappointed to lose out to Schumacher at the final moment

To the delight of the Tifosi, Ferrari secured pole position and aced the front row for tomorrow’s 62-lap San Marino Grand Prix. But for Michael Schumacher it was a far from easy session as he had to watch team-mate Rubens Barrichello lead the way right until his final banzai qualifying run. It was a thrilling battle on home soil between the Ferrari drivers but it is Schumacher who will start the race from pole position for the 45th time of his career and very much enters the event as favourite.

However, it was Rubens Barrichello who led the way after the front-runners had completed their first three runs and it all looked to be set for Barrichello to record his second pole position of the year until Schumacher crossed the line for the last time. Barrichello was the first to greet Michael as he returned to the pits after their tussle for supremacy, and it was good to see the Brazilian beaming from ear to ear as he clearly enjoyed making his team-mate work so hard for the position.

Ralf Schumacher proved to be the nearest competition to the Ferraris

BMW Williams locked out the second row of the grid with Ralf Schumacher piping Juan Pablo Montoya to third place and managing to get within four-tenths of a second of the eventual pole position time. The team had struggled for grip with their Michelin rubber during practice, but when it counted, both FW24s proved stable.

Kimi Raikkonen was fifth fastest in his McLaren Mercedes, with team-mate David Coulthard continuing the team-by-team symmetry in sixth position. For Raikkonen, today’s qualifying run was especially positive, as he was able to lap nearly three-tenths of a second faster than his more experienced team-mate.

Nick Heidfeld did a great job to take seventh position in his Sauber Petronas just ahead of the Renault duo of Jarno Trulli and Jenson Button. Jacques Villeneuve looked more like the race driver of old as he hustled his BAR Honda around to take a promising tenth position.

Heidfeld impressed again after finishing in 7th place

Felipe Massa was right on the ragged edge throughout his four qualifying runs and will be disappointed not to have made the top ten at a circuit that he actually knows, but it was still a good performance for the Rookie driver in the second Sauber.

Olivier Panis was 12th fastest as the BAR Honda team showed the way to rivals Jordan, just ahead of Heinz-Harald Frentzen in the Arrows Cosworth.

Jordan Honda disappointed and could manage no better than 14th and 15th positions. The session started badly for Giancarlo Fisichella, who starts behind Takuma Sato for the first time this year, as his Jordan failed on his first qualifying run consigning him to the spare chassis. However, the team and new sponsor Virgin mobile will not be happy with their pace this afternoon at Imola with both cars lapping three seconds off the ultimate pace.

Mika Salo and Allan McNish qualified their Toyota entries in 16th and 17th positions respectively, ahead of Eddie Irvine in the fastest Jaguar. For the Jaguar team, the result will be disheartening as they thought that they had made some progress over the last few weeks. Pedro de la Rosa was just 21st.

Enrique Bernoldi’s qualifying session got off to an awful start as his Cosworth engine failed on his very first out lap leaving the Brazilian in the spare Arrows in which he could do no better than 20th position.

Alex Yoong looked out of his depth and will not start the race after failing to qualify

It was a tale of mixed fortunes at the KL Minardi Asiatech team as Mark Webber did another solid job to qualify in 19th position, while Alex Yoong suffered an terrible qualifying session, failing to get his Minardi up to speed to set a time inside the 107 percent mark. Webber is certainly the faster of the two Minardi drivers, but it is debatable whether Yoong is nearly three seconds a lap slower. It remains to be seen whether the Malaysian will be allowed to race at Minardi's home event which will also be their 275th race.

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