Austrian jinx continues for Schu
Rubens Barrichello marked his new deal with Ferrari by scorching to pole position for tomorrow’s Austrian Grand Prix at Zeltweg today.
The Brazilian finally saw-off team-mate Michael Schumacher in a intriguing qualifying battle as the four-time champion was forced into third spot.
The Ferrari duo were denied a third successive all front row by the Williams-BMW of Ralf Schumacher who finished almost 0.3 secs adrift of Barrichello.
Colombia’s Juan Pablo Montoya overcame problems in his Williams to take fourth spot on the A1-Ring followed by Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld with Kimi Raikkonen sixth for McLaren.
David Coulthard was outqualified by his McLaren team-mate for the fourth time in six races this season as he finished back in eighth spot.
Jenson Button was 13th for Renault his worst of the season with Allan McNish 14th for Toyota but Eddie Irvine was back in 20th spot for Jaguar.
The session had to be red-flagged at the midway point when Jarno Trulli’s Renault engine blew depositing oil on the track as the Italian coaxed the car to the edge of the circuit.
Barrichello was forced to take to the gravel when he suddenly came upon a slow-moving Sauber at the same part of the track while Heinz-Harald Frentzen also created huge clouds of dust after sliding off nearby.
Brazilian Barrichello saw his first flying lap wrecked by the incident while Schumacher was the only driver still to emerge from the garage.
Qualifying was halted for just over 10 minutes as the stricken Renault was hoisted onto a tow truck with Coulthard, whose last victory was in Austria 12 months ago, holding provisional pole.
But the 31-year-old Scot was soon displaced by Schumacher junior in the BMW-powered Williams although his stay at the top was also short-lived as Barrichello went fastest.
Schumacher senior had to settle for the second best-time 0.1 secs adrift then ran into problems on his next lap as he slid off the track, though he managed to keep the car going.
Barrichello immediately increased his advantage to over half-a-second as he did two flying laps in succession.
Schumacher then found himself third fastest as his younger brother went quicker on his next qualifying run.
The 33-year-old could not improve next time out and responded by switching to the spare car for his final attempt.
But Schumacher, who leads the championship by 21 points but has never won in Austria, was unable to make an impression.
Instead Barrichello went faster even though he again had to take to the gravel at the end of his first lap to avoid a collision with Salo’s Toyota as the end of the session was marked by heavy traffic.
It was a perfect way to celebrate signing a new deal with Ferrari until the end of the 2004 season.
Barrichello’s second pole of the season he was also on top in Australia was only the fifth of his career.
Barrichello said: ‘‘This is great and I feel really confident about the race tomorrow. It was quite a busy session with everybody out there at the end.
‘‘My heart rate must have gone up to 200 when I saw the Toyota because I thought there was a big crash coming but fortunately I had the speed to avoid it.’’
Schumacher junior said: ‘‘I am surprised to split the Ferraris because there seemed to be a big gap to them, perhaps Michael had a problem.’’
Schumacher senior, who will start a race off the front row for the first time this season, said: ‘‘I think we had a problem with the race car so we switched to the ‘T’ car.
‘‘I also lost the back-end on one of the runs, but it is a long race tomorrow so lets see what happens.’’