06/07/2002

British Grand Prix - Qualifying Round-Up

A fine team performance in qualifying has dramatically transformed the British Grand Prix round 10 of the Formula 1 World Championship for Panasonic Toyota Racing.

Free practice on Friday was not promising with Mika Salo unable to drive after suffering sickness following a stomach infection and rain spoiling any chance of meaningful work for Allan McNish.

Despite that a fully recovered Salo turned in a fabulous performance to record the team's best qualifying performance of the season with eighth place on the grid. It is a particularly strong achievement considering that Silverstone is ehome' to the many British-based F1 teams which all test so regularly at the Northamptonshire track.

The team's previous best qualifying performance was ninth place in Monte Carlo and Salo was very satisfied to have improved upon that.

"We had a slow morning with only a few laps done " Salo said "The car was not great and then we had a flat battery in qualifying. But once that was sorted out it helped us when the sun came out because the car worked much better in hotter conditions. We have a bit of work to do with the race set-up but after such a difficult start on Friday eighth is better than good!"

Allan McNish meanwhile was just 0.39s slower than his team mate but so evenly-matched is the midfield that the Scot will start 15th seven slots behind Salo.

For McNish there was frustration: "The time is not so bad but on the third run I got held up by another car coming through the critical fast sweepers at Becketts. I'm not going to blame that particular driver but he had just come out of the pits and you are catching so quickly there.

"You're never quite sure what someone is going to do and by the third part of Becketts any tiny lift of the throttle costs you time all the way down the following Hangar Straight and I reckon I lost two or three tenths right there. I know I could have done a better time and the midfield is so close so it was very annoying."

After Ferrari dominated proceedings for much of the session Juan Pablo Montoya pulled out a fabulous lap to record the only sub 1m19s lap and snatch his fourth consecutive pole position for the BMW Williams F1 Team. The Scuderia Marlboro Ferrari drivers proved very evenly matched and Rubens Barrichello eventually bettered Michael Schumacher by 0.01s to claim second place on the grid. Brother Ralf qualified the second Williams-BMW fourth while the West McLaren Mercedes cars of Kimi Raikkonen and David Coulthard claimed row three of the grid.

Except for Formula 1's top three teams only Jarno Trulli's Renault will start the British Grand Prix ahead of Salo's Toyota.