NewsOnF1 - 2001 Canadian GP - Qualifying Report

Michael Schumacher grabbed his 6th pole position of the season and his 38th in his career. His brother Ralf Schumacher was a surprise 2nd ahead of David Coulthard.
4th was yet another surprise with Jarno Trulli ahead of Rubens Barrichello and Olivier Panis.
Kimi Raikkonen was 7th, Mika Hakkinen a disappointing 8th, Villeneuve in 9th and Montoya made up the 10th place on the grid.

Michael Schumacher didn't face any real threat from any driver. He took provisional pole on his first run and his brother came to within a 10th of a second on his second run. Michael Schumacher then went out and clocked a 1:15.782 on his second run and that was all he needed. He didn't use his 3rd and 4th run. Despite that his time was over 2.5 seconds faster than the pole time of last year.
Ralf Schumacher was impressive despite being over half a second behind his brother. The form they have displayed in practice didn't indicate that he could challenge for a place on the front row. On the other hand Coulthard's third place finish was disappointing as he was expected to challenge for pole and was looking good in practice.
Jarno Trulli managed to put his Honda powered Jordan on the second row of the grid ahead of a Ferrari and a McLaren. It looks like Honda is getting there afterall.
Barrichello only managed 5th after he crashed his car on his second run forcing a stop to the session. He managed to improve slightly using the spare.
Olivier Panis did very well in 6th place under a 10th of a second behind Barrichello.
Another impressive performance was that of Kimi Raikkonen who is new to this track yet managed to qualify in 7th ahead of his more experienced country man Mika Hakkinen.
Villeneuve managed to get 9th place despite the lack of time he had during practice while Juan Pablo Montoya made up the top 10.

Nick Heidfeld only managed 11th as he crashed his car on his final run forcing the session to be stopped while Ricardo Zonta managed 12th in his first appearance for Jordan as he replaces Heinz Harald Frentzen who withdrew from the event after not feeling 100%.

Jaguar and Prost don't appear to have made much improvement on this type of track with their new aerodynamic packages with de la Rosa in 14th ahead of Irvine and Alesi while Fisichella in the Benetton only managed 18th with his team-mate Jenson Button in 20th. The 2 Minardi's make the back of the grid.
The Arrows team did well in qualifying as they usually do on low downforce tracks with Jos Verstappen in 13th ahead of both the Jaguars and Bernoldi in 17th on his first appearance on the track.

In the battle of the team-mates, Fernando Alonso out qualified Tarso Marques by 1.236 seconds, Michael Schumacher was 0.978 faster than Barrichello, Jarno Trulli was 0.869 seconds ahead of Ricardo Zonta, Ralf Schumacher was 0.826 seconds faster than Juan Pablo Montoya.
The closest team-mates where Pedro de la Rosa and Eddie Irvine with de la Rosa just 0.001 seconds ahead. Next were Olivier Panis and Jacques Villeneuve with Panis 0.264 seconds ahead and that was the difference between 6th and 9th on the grid!.
Then it was Kimi Raikkonen and Nick Heidfeld with Raikkonen 0.290 seconds faster and that was the difference between 7th and 11th on the grid.

The top 6 are within 1 second, the top 12 within 2 seconds and the top 20 within 3 seconds. It is also worth noting that just 1.031 seconds separates 2nd and 12th place.

16 drivers managed to go faster than the pole time of last year. The lap times are getting much faster and this will force the FIA to look into the increasing speeds of the cars.

A number of drivers achieved their best qualifying result so far this season with Trulli (4th), Panis (6th), Raikkonen (7th) and Verstappen (13th). In addition to Michael Schumacher who made his 6th pole of the season and Ralf Schumacher who has equalled his best being 2nd on the grid for the 2nd time this season.

The race tomorrow looks like another straight forward one for Michael although there has been talk about the higher fuel consumption that Ferrari has compared to McLaren meaning that he'll have to stop earlier for longer. Even so, if Michael is half a second faster per lap, he can easily make up that gap. Given that Ralf Schumacher is 2nd on the grid it could also be an interesting tyre war.
One thing we know for sure and that is the battle for the points will be intense.

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