31/08/2002

Belgian Grand Prix - Qualifying Round Up

Hopes for a strong showing at Spa Francorchamps proved well founded when Panasonic Toyota Racing achieved its second best combined qualifying performance of the season in Belgium.

Mika Salo managed to qualify eighth at Silverstone which is the team's best individual qualifying achievement of its debut year but with Salo 9th and team mate Allan McNish 13th this is the best aggregate result since the pair qualified 9th and 10th in Monte Carlo.

Salo said: "Yesterday we did a long run to test the consistency of the tyres in race conditions and the results were good so I'm confident for the race."

McNish commented: "We continued to develop the car set-up during qualifying and we changed the tyre pressures on both cars for our last runs. It worked perfectly for Mika but we didn't get it quite right on my car. Even so overtaking is perfectly feasible here the car feels good in race trim and I'm looking forward to tomorrow."

Five-time world champion Michael Schumacher describes Spa as his favourite circuit but despite winning the Belgian Grand Prix five times the German actually took his first ever pole position at Spa something that was even a surprise to him when it was pointed out!

Schumacher was the only driver to lap below 1m44s with West McLaren Mercedes driver Kimi Raikkonen achieving his first front row starting position as he managed to split the Scuderia Marlboro Ferrari drivers. Behind third-placed Rubens Barrichello were the BMW Williams F1 Team drivers with Ralf Schumacher ahead of Juan Pablo Montoya. Completing the dominance of the 'Big Three' teams at the front of the grid was David Coulthard's McLaren-Mercedes.

Team manager Ange Pasquali explained the pleasure felt within Panasonic Toyota Racing after three very tough races.

"We have been working very hard to achieve top 10 qualifying positions and ninth is a very good performance from Mika " he said. "Yesterday we were already convinced that we were going in the right direction and Allan has qualified well too. Spa is often a race where anything can happen and even if the grid positions are not as significant as in Hungary for example it's nice to qualify on the front five rows again.

As usual at Spa unsettled weather is on the menu for tomorrow's race and strategy quick-thinking and opportunism could again reap strong reward.