Belgian GP - Qualifying
VILLENEUVE TAKES ADVANTAGE BAR Honda driver qualifies sixth in tricky conditions In a frenetic wet-drying qualifying session at Spa-Francorchamps for the Belgian Grand Prix tomorrow, Jacques Villeneuve qualified his Lucky Strike BAR Honda in sixth position, ahead of the Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello. His BAR Honda team-mate Olivier Panis was 11th fastest, while the Benson and Hedges Jordan Honda pairing of Jean Alesi and Jarno Trulli were 13th and 16th respectively. The unpredictable Spa weather played havoc with the one-hour session but as the clock ran out it was Juan Pablo Montoya that topped the times to take up pole position on tomorrow’s grid, with his Williams BMW team-mate Ralf Schumacher alongside him in second spot. Michael Schumacher had to accept third position, having traded provisional pole position with McLaren’s David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen, while Sauber’s Heinz-Harald Frentzen took fourth. The session began with a fully wet circuit as rain fell in the 15 minutes leading up to the beginning of the session. From then on, qualifying was always going to be dictated by who was out on track at the right time. For almost half an hour the cars stayed inside the pit garages and it was when the seconds had ticked out and cars were already on their final runs that pole was decided. Montoya took pole from Michael Schumacher as he beat the chequered flag for one more timed lap but seconds later Ralf snatched it away. Montoya however made sure of it with his next lap which was eight-tenths faster than his team-mate’s, although an investigation was immediately begun by the race stewards when it appeared Montoya had passed a stranded car under yellow flags without slowing down, as is required by the regulations. A decision is expected. Jacques Villeneuve Position: 6th “Today went quite well for us. The car was quick with both intermediates and dry tyres. My qualifying lap wasn’t very quick - I took it easy because I didn’t want to make a mistake. But then I missed the last lap by 10 seconds. The track really dried for that lap – there were another 3 seconds left because of the way the track dried. I’m disappointed that we couldn’t do another lap at the end but it’s still good to be starting in 6th position to try for a good result in the race. Tomorrow should be good. This year we’ve been quite good at calling what the weather does and hopefully that will help us. We went out early on intermediates but then it looked like it was going to dry so I came back in for slick tyres. The more you wait, the bigger the risk but the pay-off can be greater. It just depends on how long you’re willing to wait.” Kazutoshi Nishizawa – Technical Director, Honda Racing Development “I have mixed emotions. JV did a really good job – it was a bold decision to go out on dry tyres when he did and it paid off for him but Olivier was unlucky. As for Jordan they obviously had a difficult session but to be honest I’m really not that disappointed because both teams have looked quite competitive in dry and wet settings and should race well tomorrow.” Craig Pollock, Team Principal and Managing Director, BAR Honda “Qualifying saw a great display of teamwork from us today. Jacques and his engineers made a very good call and he qualified where he did because of that. I feel very disappointed for Olivier – he suffered with steering problems which were totally out of his control. If he hadn’t had those problems, I’m sure he would have been up there with Jacques at the end of the session because both cars were competitive in the wet. 6th on the grid is a great position to fight from tomorrow and we hope that will translate into a points finish.” Trevor Foster, Managing Director, Jordan Honda “We didn’t think the track was going to dry out enough to switch to dry tyres, but grooves would have been the ideal choice for the last lap. It’s very disappointing that we weren’t able to make the most out of the track conditions and improve our grid positions. We now hope for a two car finish tomorrow to try and pull something positive out of this disappointing qualifying performance, but it will be a tough race.” Today’s results Pole MONTOYA Williams BMW 1m52.072s 2 R.SCHUMACHER Williams BMW 1m52.959s 3 M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari 1m54.685s 4 FRENTZEN Prost Acer 1m55.233s 5 BARRICHELLO Ferrari 1m56.116s 6 VILLENEUVE BAR Honda 1m57.038s 11 PANIS BAR Honda 1m58.838s 13 ALESI Jordan Honda 1m59.128s 16 TRULLI Jordan Honda 1m59.647s -------------------------------------------------------------- Honda Formula 1 Press Office, 19 Heathmans Road, London, SW6 4TJ, UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7384 2133 Fax: +44 (0)20 7384 1238