NewsOnF1 - 2001 British GP - Qualifying Report

Michael Schumacher grabs his 40th Pole position of his career and will start from Pole for the British GP for the first time in his career. Mika Hakkinen is alongside him with David Coulthard in 3rd. Jarno Trulli was impressive managing the 4th fastest time just 0.003 seconds behind Coulthard while Heinz Harald Frentzen was 5th ahead of a disappointing Rubens Barrichello.

Michael Schumacher's time was over a second faster than the pole time set in 97 with slick tyres. The top 5 cars actually beat that time.

The lack of action for the first 24 minutes was certainly worth going through as the remainder of the session saw one of the closest qualifying sessions this season with provisional pole changing between the top 3 a number of times.

It didn't rain during the session and the teams were waiting for the track to dry. Kimi Raikkonen was the first to go out 24 minutes into the session, soon after most of the drivers set timed laps.
It was Mika Hakkinen who first grabbed provisional pole with David Coulthard close behind. Michael Schumacher went out and took provisional pole but David Coulthard grabbed it on his second run. Seconds later, Hakkinen takes it back while Michael Schumacher moves behind Hakkinen.
On the third run, Hakkinen improves his time in 1st with Coulthard taking 2nd from Michael but then Michael retakes pole.
On the 4th run Hakkinen improves but not enough to take pole. He ends up 0.082 seconds behind Michael.

The Jordan Honda team were certainly impressive with Trulli almost getting ahead of Coulthard while Frentzen managed 4th fastest, both of them ahead of Barrichello.

Juan Pablo Montoya and Jacques Villeneuve both had problems with their cars and had to use their spare cars for the latter part of the session. Montoya managed to qualify in 8th place despite only having 3 runs (one of which he aborted) while Villeneuve was a disappointing 12th behind his team-mate Olivier Panis.
Ralf Schumacher only covered 9 laps and ended up behind his team-mate Montoya. It is only the second time that Montoya manages to qualify in front of Ralf this season.

Almost half a second separates 1st and 3rd, over 1.2 seconds separates 1st and 6th and just under 1.9 seconds separates 1st and 11th.

The closest group of cars is between 7th placed Kimi Raikkonen and 11th placed Olivier Panis with just 0.293 seconds separating the 5 cars.

It was the best qualifying position this season for Pedro de la Rosa (13) while Michael Schumacher (1), Mika Hakkinen (2), Jarno Trulli (4) and Kimi Raikkonen (7) equalled their best qualifying this season. Ralf Schumacher on the other hand had his worst qualifying position this season in 10th place. In fact it is the first time Ralf qualifies outside the top 5!
Jacques Villeneuve (12), Eddie Irvine (15) and Giancarlo Fisichella (19) equalled their worst qualifying positions this season.
If Tarso Marques is allowed to start, he will once again start from 22nd on the grid. Only twice so far this season did he manage to qualify higher!

In the battle of the team-mates, Montoya just managed to get ahead of his team-mate by 0.064 seconds. Jenson Button (for only the 2nd time this season) managed to qualify ahead of Fisichella by 0.152 seconds and Pedro de la Rosa was 0.166 seconds ahead of Eddie Irvine.
Tarso Marques continues to qualify way behind his team-mate, in fact Marques didn't manage to get within the 107% time required for qualifying and it remains to be seen if Minardi will be able to convince the race stewards to let him race. Marques was a massive 1.714 seconds behind Alonso. Next was Rubens Barrichello who certainly looks like he lost interest qualifying 1.268 seconds slower than Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve who used to get it right in qualifying was 0.6 seconds behind his team-mate Olivier Panis after struggling all day today.

It looks like on this track, McLaren are a lot closer to Michael Schumacher. If the conditions are dry (which is not likely), McLaren could beat Ferrari. If it rains well it could be anyone's race then!

Click here of the Qualifying table for the drivers this season

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Session	2001			2000
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
The Heretic's Review		Fan Reviews