Alonso stuns title challengers

Fernando Alonso blew away the major players of this year’s world title race to claim the second pole position of his career for tomorrow’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Renault driver was astonishing as he blitzed the Hungaroring circuit to clock a time of one minute 21.668 seconds, with his rivals left trailing.

Spaniard Alonso, who in Malaysia became the youngest driver in Formula One history to win pole, will be joined on the front row by the Williams-BMW of Ralf Schumacher.

The German proved he is far from finished with this season’s championship, despite trailing current leader and brother Michael by 18 points, although he was 0.256secs adrift of Alonso.

Mark Webber was equally as impressive as Alonso, matching his best performance of the season to claim third for Jaguar.

But for a rear wheel on the grass at one point he could easily have been on the front row.

Michael Schumacher’s proud boast this week that he is favourite for a record sixth world title looked hollow after managing just eighth in his Ferrari, a second off the pace.

Significantly, Schumacher is behind both his main championship rivals in fourth-placed Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen in seventh after suffering a bad middle sector round the 4.384-kilometre track.

Starting 12th of the 20 drivers after a poor qualifying session yesterday, the 34-year-old had to fight for control of his car at one point, resulting in the German now having sat on the front row just once in his last seven races.

Schumacher will have been hoping team-mate Rubens Barrichello could have thrown a spanner in the works, but despite superb pace through the first sector, he could not maintain his speed and wound up fifth.

David Coulthard, who yesterday was confirmed as having retained his seat for 2004 with McLaren, could only claim ninth, 1.372secs down.

Justin Wilson, competing in only his second race with Jaguar following his switch from Minardi recently, produced a commendable performance to finish 12th with a time of 1min 23.660secs.

The 25-year-old from Sheffield notably finished ahead of the BARs of Jenson Button – 14th and over two seconds down – Jacques Villeneuve, Giancarlo Fisichella’s Jordan, the Toyota of Cristiano da Matta and Heinz-Harald Frentzen in the Sauber.

Zsolt Baumgartner, replacing Ralph Firman in the second Jordan after the Briton suffered concussion and a bruised heel following a 150mph smash in practice this morning, did not disgrace himself.

Baumgartner, the first Hungarian to compete in Formula One, might have finished five seconds adrift, but at least will not start at the back of the grid as Nicolas Kiesa in the Minardi has the dubious honour.