No home rule for Renault as Schumacher scorches to pole

Michael Schumacher took pole position for the French Grand Prix today as Ferrari delivered a body blow to Renault on their home ground at Magny-Cours.

Sat, 15 Jul, 2006 - 15:25

Michael Schumacher took pole position for the French Grand Prix today as Ferrari delivered a body blow to Renault on their home ground at Magny-Cours.

Schumacher and Renault’s Fernando Alonso duelled for track position early on but the German won the battle which really mattered when he led home a Ferrari clean sweep of qualifying.

His time of one minute 15.493 seconds was 0.017secs faster than team-mate Felipe Massa, who was agonisingly close to his first Formula One pole position with a last-gasp flier.

Alonso’s best effort was a quarter-of-a-second slower than Schumacher and he lines up third tomorrow when he defends his 19-point championship lead over the Ferrari ace.

Jarno Trulli produced another superb qualifying performance for Toyota to take fourth place, with team-mate Ralf Schumacher fifth.

Pedro de la Rosa dusted off the cobwebs with his first qualifying session for more than a year and his first under Formula One’s new system.

The Spaniard has taken over from axed McLaren driver Juan Pablo Montoya and he performed credibly to set the eighth fastest time, compared to team-mate Kimi Raikkonen’s sixth. Giancarlo Fisichella was seventh on the other Renault.

Jenson Button’s season took another miserable turn when he failed to make it through first qualifying, condemning him to a lowly 18th on the grid.

The Honda driver has not scored a point for more than two months and he gave himself little chance to change that with a lacklustre showing in the first 14-minute session.

He briefly dragged himself clear of the bottom six places but improvements from his rivals saw him miss the cut.

Today’s performance equals Button’s worst qualifying of the season, 19th at Silverstone, although he was bumped up one spot as a result of Nico Rosberg’s engine change.

The Williams driver damaged his Cosworth engine in finishing ninth at Indianapolis but the team waited until this afternoon to replace it, bringing a 10-place penalty and dropping him from ninth to 19th.

Button’s team-mate Rubens Barrichello also struggled with his car, which underwent substantial changes for this weekend designed to bring a massive improvement. He starts 13th.

David Coulthard left it late to squeeze through second qualifying and earn himself a top-10 starting slot.

The Red Bull driver struggled in the pole position shoot-out though and will start from ninth.

Franck Montagny put his final qualifying session for Super Aguri to good use by out-qualifying team-mate Takuma Sato for the first time, although they were fighting for the final two spots on the grid.

The Frenchman will be replaced in the race team by Sakon Yamamoto from Germany onwards.

Formula 1 French Grand Prix:

Final Qualifying Positions: 1 Michael Schumacher (Ger) Ferrari 01min 15.493secs,

2 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 01:15.510,

3 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault 01:15.785,

4 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota 01:16.036,

5 Ralf Schumacher (Ger) Toyota 01:16.091,

6 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) McLaren 01:16.281,

7 Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Renault 01:16.345,

8 Pedro de la Rosa (Spa) McLaren 01:16.632,

9 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams 01:18.272,

10 David Coulthard (Gbr) Red Bull 01:18.663,