05/07/2003

French Grand Prix Second Qualifying Report

Olivier Panis will start his home Grand Prix in 10th place for Panasonic Toyota Racing at Magny Cours. It is the seventh time in 10 races that the Frenchman has qualified in the top 10 and the third race in succession.

Panis's time 1m16.345s was 1.3s from Ralf Schumacher's pole position best and means that he will once again be strongly positioned to challenge for points. Brazilian team mate Cristiano da Matta lapped in 1m17.068s and will start the race from 13th position on the grid.

Magny Cours is a technical track that makes many varied demands on the car. The first couple of corners are two of the quickest anywhere and then top speed and effective braking are needed if a driver is able to challenge at the Adelaide Hairpin the only realistic overtaking opportunity on the lap. There then follows a tighter second sector where grip and good directional change are strong requirements followed by a revised sector three. Include a surface that is smooth but highly sensitive to temperature change and it all adds up to a very challenging environment.

"I'm happy because starting from the top 10 again is another good result for the team especially at a difficult track like Magny Cours Panis said. I have done a lot of laps here in my career and I was actually hoping to do a little better but the track temperature changed quite a lot between the warm-up and even during qualifying. There was a little less grip than I expected and that caught us out a little bit. On the positive side we have made continuous improvements to the car all weekend and I should be well placed to turn promise into points."

Starting from 13th Da Matta could also have a competitive race.

"It is hard to know where you are this year because of the varying fuel loads but we adopted a slightly different strategy to usual with more emphasis on the race than this afternoon's qualifying session he explained. Bearing that in mind I'm quite happy with my time and I don't think there was a lot more to come from the car although possibly a tenth in the final chicane. I was hoping to make it into the top dozen but I have only missed out by one slot."

Ralf Schumacher (1m15.019s) claimed his third pole position in four races for the BMW Williams F1 Team with team mate Juan Pablo Montoya (1m15.136s) joining him on the front row of the grid. Five times champion Michael Schumacher (1m15.480s) had to content himself with third fastest time for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro. The West McLaren Mercedes pair were next up with championship challenger Kimi Raikkonen (1m15.533s) slightly quicker than David Coulthard (1m15.628s). Jarno Trulli (1m15.967s) completed the top six for the Mild Seven Renault Team marginally quicker than team mate Fernando Alonso (1m16.087s).