Schumacher Storms to 60th F1 Pole - Europe
Saturday May 29th, 2004
By Will Gray
World Champion Michael Schumacher returned to form on Saturday as he claimed the 60th pole position of his career for Sunday's European Grand Prix with a scintillating lap around the Nurburgring.
Ferrari driver Schumacher, beaten for the first time this season in the Monaco Grand Prix six days ago, made up for his disappointment by scorching to his fourth pole of the season by more than half-a-second.
BAR-Honda's Takuma Sato, quickest in the first qualifying session, was unable to trouble Schumacher's best time but he claimed his first front row start of his career with second place on the grid.
Jarno Trulli, winner in Monaco last weekend, had set the pace for much of the session but will begin from third for Renault with McLaren driver Kimi Raikkonen alongside him having qualified fourth.
Sato's BAR teammate Jenson Button will be fifth on the grid having ran wide early in his run with Renault's Fernando Alonso and Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello sixth and seventh respectively.
Williams-BMW pair Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher were eighth and ninth fastest in the session and Toyota driver Olivier Panis completed the top ten.
Minardi's Gianmaria Bruni, the first man on track in the second session, was placed under investigation after leaving the pitlane while the red lights was still on, although only teammate Zsolt Baumgartner ended slower than him of the drivers who completed their runs.
Mark Webber had one second added onto his qualifying time of 1:30.797 following a yellow flag infringement on Friday and the Jaguar driver will begin the race from 14th on the grid having lost two places.
Giancarlo Fisichella, who would have been dropped 10 grid positions after an engine failure on Friday, decided against qualifying his Sauber as the car was wheeled into parc ferme without turning a lap.
McLaren's David Coulthard, fourth in the first session before an engine problem left him stranded on the track, also failed to set a lap time and will begin from the back of the grid in the spare car.
Trulli, unable to converse with his engineers after losing his voice, held top spot for much of the session before Schumacher toppled him at the head of the timesheets by almost eight-tenths of a second and Sato then took second place. |
