NewsOnF1 - 2002 Hungarian GP - Qualifying Report

Rubens Barrichello grabbed his 3rd Pole position of the season in a very close fight with his team-mate Michael Schumacher. Ralf Schumacher was the only other driver to come close to the Ferraris and ended up in third and 0.413 seconds behind. Juan Pablo Montoya managed to qualify in 4th place but was over 1.3 seconds off the pace.
Giancarlo Fisichella managed 5th a tenth of a second ahead of Jarno Trulli while Felipe Massa managed 7th just ahead of his team-mate Nick Heidfeld. Jenson Button was 9th ahead of David Coulthard in 10th while Kimi Raikkonen only managed 11th but was only 0.02 seconds behind Coulthard.
At the back, both Minardis managed to qualify with Mark Webber in 19th and Anthony Davidson in 20th over 4 seconds off the pace.

The session started with Anthony Davidson the first to go out in the 12th minute and it was only until the 23rd minute that any of the other drivers went out.
Ralf Schumacher was the first to set a time worthy of Pole in the 27th minute but at the halfway mark Michael Schumacher bettered Ralf's time by over half a second. Barrichello had to abort his first after Jenson Button spun in front of him.

Barrichello's took provisional pole on his second run by over 0.7 seconds, Ralf Schumacher moved into second ahead of Michael while Montoya moved into 4th.
Michael Schumacher got very close to Rubens on his second run and ended up under a tenth behind. Barrichello couldn't improve on his time on his third run.

Michael's third run just before the end of the session was quicker than his previous but that still wasn't enough for him to take Pole while Barrichello went out on his final run and improved his time slightly securing his 3rd Pole of the season.
Ralf Schumacher failed to improve on his last 2 runs and neither did Montoya. However Ralf's form in this session was stunning while Montoya's was less than average and the Quali-flyer will certainly have more to say on that.

Behind the top 2 teams it is very tight. In fact from Montoya who is 4th until Villeneuve who is 13th, there is only 0.877 seconds.
Fisichella, Trulli and Massa were all impressive in managing to put their cars in 5th, 6th and 7th while the 2 McLarens were disappointing only managing 10th and 11th.

It is worth noting that this is the first time since 1996 that a driver other than Michael Schumacher or Mika Hakkinen will start from Pole at the Hungaroring. The last driver other than those two was Damon Hill in 1995.

The weather conditions did help the Michelin runners mix it with the Bridgestone runners. There were 5 Bridgestone and 5 Michelin runners in the top 10. Much more encouraging for the Michelin runners than it has been all weekend!

In the battle of the team-mates, a number of team-mates were very close, David Coulthard managed to outqualify Kimi Raikkonen by a mere 0.02 seconds. Olivier Panis edged out Jacques Villeneuve by just 0.027 seconds, Rubens Barrichello was just 0.059 seconds faster than Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa was 0.082 seconds ahead of his team-mate Nick Heidfeld but given that Massa is new to this track, his performance was very impressive.
On the other hand, Juan Pablo Montoya was out-qualified by his team-mate comprehensively for the second Grand Prix in a row, the gap to Ralf was a huge 0.96 seconds. Takuma Sato was 0.924 seconds behind Giancarlo Fisichella while Eddie Irvine was out-qualified by Pedro de la Rosa by 0.552 seconds.
Anthony Davidson who drove the Minardi for the first time on Friday was just over half a second behind his team-mate Mark Webber.

Giancarlo Fisichella (5th) had his best qualifying position so far this season while Rubens Barrichello (1st), Jarno Trulli (6th) and Felipe Massa (7th) equalled their best positions this season.
With the absence of the Arrows team, Anthony Davidson has qualified in 20th place on his first ever Formula 1 grand Prix.

So Ferrari continued their domination here at the Hungaroring and assuming that both have good starts, the 2 Ferraris are likely to disappear into the distance. However we could see a good fight between Rubens and Michael as there would not be team orders this time round. Behind those two, there will be numerous fights and a good start coupled with a good strategy will determine who'll get points!

Click here for the 'Real Race report' including the Also Ran award by the Quali-flyer
Click here of the Qualifying table for the drivers this season

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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
What the teams and drivers said Friday - Saturday - Sunday