Schumacher fastest as Ferrari’s dominate qualifying
Schumacher, who gave the new F2003-GA machine a winning debut at the last race in Barcelona, finished more than half a second faster than Ferrari’s closest rival, Mark Webber of Jaguar.
The German went out second in the session and controlled a last corner slide to set a time of 1min 07.908secs and beat last year’s pole time of 1:08.082.
“I am happy with the work we have done today as it all looks very positive,” Schumacher said.
“We are learning more about the car every time we run it and this afternoon it worked very well. I have the best possible start position for Saturday, when of course the final qualifying outcome will be affected by the various fuel load options.
“So I think we can be confident for the rest of the weekend. As for the incident at the final corner I just ran a bit wide but luckily I managed to control the slide.”
His time was 0.279 secs faster than that of Brazilian team-mate Rubens Barrichello, who finished second, and 0.604 secs faster than Australian Webber.
Canadian Jacques Villeneuve finished fourth in a BAR after beating his fifth-placed British team-mate Jenson Button by little more than a tenth of a second.
Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, whose Williams teammate Ralf Schumacher spun off during his one-lap run, finished sixth with Scot David Coulthard seventh for McLaren but more than a second slower than the lead Ferrari.
Coulthard’s team-mate Kimi Raikkonen finished eighth with Webber’s team-mate Brazilian Antonio Pizzonia and Italian Giancarlo Fisichella of Jordan completing the top ten.
Ralf Schumacher caused the session to be briefly halted after 14 minutes when he spun out between the Grosser and Niki Lauda corners.
His stricken car had to be crane lifted out of the gravel trap and he will run first in Saturday’s qualifying session after failing to set a time.
The session was stopped for a second time when Ralph Firman spun his Jordan as he exited the final corner and crashed into the wall on the pit straight.
The Briton rolled backwards over the line to set a time of one min 11.171 secs, which put him one place above Ralf Schumacher at the bottom of the timesheets and 3.263 secs behind Michael Schumacher.
“I was pushing hard, but obviously too hard on the final corner,” said Firman.
“As I came through the corner I ran a little bit too wide and tried to keep my foot in to get a good lap time but I went on the grass and hit the wall.
“I’m disappointed for myself as I was on a good lap and I also feel sorry that the boys have got a fair bit of work to do repairing the car.”
Ferrari dominated last year’s event but were strongly criticised when they used blatant team orders to force Rubens Barrichello to hand victory to Schumacher on the last lap.
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