NewsOnF1 - 2002 European GP - Qualifying Report

Juan Pablo Montoya grabs his 3rd Pole in a row and his 4th of the season. This time though it was a very close one between himself and his team-mate Ralf Schumacher with just 9 thousandths of a second separating the two. Michael Schumacher who looked so dominant in practice could only manage third although on his final run he looked like being able to get pole but his third sector wasn't good enough.
Rubens Barrichello was a distant 4th almost half a second off the pace while David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen were not too far behind the Brazilian in 5th and 6th.
A second off the pace was Jarno Trulli in 7th ahead of Jenson Button while Nick Heidfeld was 9th and Mika Salo making the top 10.

The Honda runners were equally disappointing with Panis the best runner in 12th, Sato in 14th while Fisichella was 18th and Villeneuve in 19th.
Mark Webber only managed 20th putting just one of the Arrows behind him while Yoong was once again back in 22nd almost a second slower than anyone else.

The session started slowly with Yoong the first to come out after 10 minutes. A few drivers followed but of the top runners, Kimi Raikkonen was the first out 20 minutes into the session. 5 minutes later Ralf Schumacher puts in a fast time and takes provisional pole. Rubens Barrichello goes into second while Michael Schumacher aborts his first run and switches to the spare car. Montoya's first run wasn't good and only managed 4th.

Ralf Schumacher's second run was even quicker as he sets a time below the 1:30 mark. Michael Schumacher in the spare only manages 7th while Juan Pablo Montoya moves into 3rd on his second run.

With 15 minutes to go, Juan Pablo Montoya on his third run goes fastest by just 0.009 seconds while Michael Schumacher improves into 3rd with another run to go.

With 5 minutes to go, Ralf Schumacher attempts to re-take pole but fails while Michael Schumacher leaves it until the last minute for his last run. He was slower in the first sector by a tenth, faster in the second sector by a tenth but lost two tenths in the third sector and remained in 3rd but it was close!

The Michelin tyres were clearly the dominant ones today with 7 runners in the top 10 using them.

In the battle of the team-mates, once again Mark Webber had the biggest margin over his team-mate Alex Yoong (1.255 seconds). Not too far behind though, Heinz Harald Frentzen was 1.216 seconds faster than Enrique Bernoldi while Olivier Panis managed to set a time that was 1.062 seconds faster than his team-mate Jacques Villeneuve.
On the other hand, Juan Pablo Montoya managed to out-qualify his team-mate by just 0.009 seconds while David Coulthard was just 0.041 seconds faster than his team-mate.

Juan Pablo Montoya (1st), Ralf Schumacher (2nd) and Takuma Sato (14th) all managed to equal their best positions.
Jacques Villeneuve (19th) and Giancarlo Fisichella (18th) had their worst qualifying positions this season while Michael Schumacher (3rd), Enrique Bernoldi (21st) and Alex Yoong (22nd) equalled their worst qualifying positions.

So for the 3rd race in a row, Juan Pablo Montoya in the Williams BMW will start from Pole with his team-mate Ralf Schumacher alongside him. This is the first time this season that we have a Williams 1-2 on the grid and the first since the Belgian Grand Prix of last season.

Click here for a more detailed analysis including the Also Ran award by the Quali-flyer
Click here of the Qualifying table for the drivers this season

The race will be interesting as it appears that the Michelins are good for the first few laps and then go off for 10 laps. Strategy will also be crucial.
Race starts at 2:00 PM local time. Our coverage will start at 1:45 PM local time.

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Session	2002			2001
First Friday Practice	Results	Report	Notes	Results
Second Friday Practice	Results	Report	Notes	Results
First Saturday Practice	Results	Report	Notes	Results
Second Saturday Practice	Results	Report	Notes	Results
Qualifying	Results	Report	Notes	Results
Warm-up	Results	Report	Notes	Results
Race	Results	Report	Notes	Results
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