30/03/2002

Brazilian Grand Prix Qualifying Report

Panasonic Toyota Racing reached another first class achievement in qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix when Mika Salo repeated the same top 10 qualifying performance that he showed a fortnight ago in Malaysia. Team mate Allan McNish was only half a second slower and lines up for the race in 16th position.

Despite the good performance Salo was still not fully satisfied. "There's no real improvement from Malaysia so I'm not so happy with this result " he said. He did however concede: "We had a difficult Friday and even this morning the chassis set-up was not ideal so I guess I can't be too unhappy about 10th. Like usual it is hard to race in Brazil and I hope we can finish in the points."

Allan McNish's 16th starting place is the same as in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and the Scot commented: "Basically the car was in reasonable shape and we made some progress on each run. I went over a kerb at the end of the last run which lost me a couple of tenths but generally I think we had a pretty good car - better than in morning practice. As far as race set-up goes I think we are in a better situation than for qualifying so generally I'm happy."

The qualifying hour witnessed a tremendous battle for pole position between BMW Williams and Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro. Ralf Schumacher headed the times early in the session but was ultimately displaced by his own team mate Juan Pablo Montoya.

Michael Schumacher having his first race in Ferrari's new F2002 chassis was very close but not quite close enough. On his third run he managed to split the Williams-BMWs but he had to settle for second place. He only did three of four runs however suggesting that saving tyres for the race was a more important tactic.

David Coulthard headed the McLaren-Mercedes challenge in fourth place just 0.03s quicker than team mate Kimi Raikkonen.

The McLaren-Mercedes were only fractionally quicker than a very solid performance from both Renaults. Jarno Trulli finished the qualifying hour just 0.02s slower than Raikkonen with British team mate Jenson Button only a further 0.05s adrift.

Ferrari's home hero Rubens Barrichello suffered the disappointment of having his fastest time deleted by FIA stewards as a punishment for going through a red light at the end of the pitlane during morning practice. The local fans will therefore see their man start the race from eighth position.

Nick Heidfeld qualified the first of the Saubers in ninth place just 0.21s ahead of Mika Salo.