MALAYSIAN GRAND PRIX - Qualifying Report

MALAYSIAN GRAND PRIX Qualifying

All four Honda-powered cars and drivers secured top 10 starting positions and within just 0.5 seconds of each other for tomorrow's Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang circuit, Kuala Lumpur. Benson & Hedges Jordan Honda's Jarno Trulli led the quartet home with the fifth fastest time and Jacques Villeneuve qualified seventh in the first of the two Lucky Strike Reynard BAR Hondas. Their team-mates Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Olivier Panis qualified ninth and tenth respectively to share row five of the grid.

Michael Schumacher looked good for pole after consistent running in the morning but it was his younger sibling Ralf who was the surprise in qualifying and threatened to deprive Michael of his accustomed place having set two provisional pole times. But the Ferrari pairing of Schumacher senior and Rubens Barrichello prevailed and for the second time this year locked out the front row.

Jarno Trulli and his Jordan Honda were in confident form and, until a last-gasp effort by McLaren's Mika Hakkinen pipped him to fourth in the final minutes of the session, the Italian would have lined up tomorrow on the second row alongside Ralf Schumacher. BAR Honda's Jacques Villeneuve got ahead of Hakkinen's team-mate David Coulthard with a committed run to take seventh, only two-tenths off Trulli, while Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Olivier Panis were split by only a tenth of a second.

Jarno Trulli Position: 5th "For qualifying I had exactly the same car set-up as yesterday. I was really fighting and the car was well-balanced, but on a few corners I couldn't push as much as I wanted as I don't know the car enough yet or have enough time to make the exact changes to improve things. Again though, we proved that we are very close to the top teams."

Kazutoshi Nishizawa - Technical Director, Honda Racing Development "It is fair to say we had higher expectations from today but all four cars are in a good position. Tomorrow's race is going to be a totally different environment to qualifying and we think we are in a strong position for a good result."

Eddie Jordan, Jordan Honda "It was a very exciting session. It is good to see Jarno doing a quick one just at the end. The fight was very tough and it would have been nice to see Heinz further up. Although fifth and ninth were not what we hoped for, we're not in too bad shape for the race."

Craig Pollock, BAR Honda "It was a very nerve-wracking qualifying session because we could have finished anywhere in the top 12 looking at the order from the two practice sessions. The team have done an extremely good job and the drivers have shown their worth in this qualifying session."

Today's results Pole Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:35.220 2 Rubens Barrichello Ferrari 1:35.319 3 Ralf Schumacher Williams BMW 1:35.511 4 Mika Hakkinen McLaren Mercedes 1:36.040 5 Jarno Trulli Jordan Honda 1:36.180 6 Juan Pablo Montoya Williams BMW 1:36.218 7 Jacques Villeneuve BAR Honda 1:36.397 9 Heinz-Harald Frentzen Jordan Honda 1:36.578 10 Olivier Panis BAR Honda 1:36.681