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Pastimes : Motor Sports Notes -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: X Y Zebra who wrote (387)	4/3/2004 2:59:21 PM
From: X Y Zebra	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 764

Schumacher Again on Pole - Bahrain GP Saturday April 3rd, 2004 By Will Gray World Champion Michael Schumacher proved that Sunday's inaugural Bahrain Grand Prix could be a case of new track but same old story when he claimed pole position in Saturday's final qualifying session. Schumacher, who has taken pole position and victory in both races so far this season, clocked a time of 1:30.139 on the new desert track and Brazilian Rubens Barrichello made it a scarlet one-two as he finished 0.391 seconds back. Williams pair Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher had looked set to better Schumacher's effort but dropped back with slower final sectors and finished third and fourth respectively and were almost half a second off the pace. Japanese driver Takuma Sato and Briton Jenson Button claimed fifth and sixth places for BAR-Honda with Italian Jarno Trulli seventh in the lead Renault after his teammate Fernando Alonso threw his chances away with two mistakes. Toyota pair Olivier Panis, of France, and Cristiano da Matta, of Brazil, finished eighth and ninth and Scot David Coulthard finished off the top ten for McLaren while his teammate Kimi Raikkonen elected not to run his lap. With blue skies about the desert track the air temperature reached 31 degrees Celsius at the start of the session and the burning sun raised track temperatures to 46 degrees Celsius. Hungarian Zsolt Baumgartner was first out and set a time of 1:35.787 - more than five seconds off the pace of the fastest lap of the circuit set by Button in the Saturday morning practice. His Italian teammate Gianmaria Bruni bettered that effort by more than a second then compatriot Giorgio Pantano and German Nick Heidfeld, in the two Jordans, went quicker to keep the Minardi pair at the bottom. Sauber driver Felipe Massa moved to the top with five drivers gone and Australian Mark Webber, who qualified second in Malaysia two weeks ago, could not manage to better the Brazilian's time. Austrian Christian Klien, however, did manage to move up to the top of the timesheets with a lap time that was 0.293 seconds faster than his acclaimed Jaguar teammate but their times suggested they would drop way down the grid. Coulthard immediately went 0.613 seconds faster than Klien with a time of 1:31.719 then da Matta went faster still - but the Toyota driver only moved ahead by two thousandths of a second. Barrichello, who struggled in the first qualifying session, then blitzed the previous runners' times with a lap of 1:30.530 to put himself 1.187 seconds ahead. Italian Giancarlo Fisichella, in his Sauber, slotted in behind Coulthard but Sato came close to toppling the Ferrari at the top with a time 0.297 seconds slower than Barrichello. Button, fastest in both morning practice sessions, was next out but he could do nothing to match Barrichello's time and even finished 0.029 seconds slower than Sato. The Renault pair were out next but Trulli could only manage to slot in behind the BAR pair and Alonso locked up his tyres early in the lap then went wide in the final sector and could only beat the Minardi pair. Panis was next out in the Toyota and he set a time good enough to place him fifth, one place ahead of da Matta but 1.156 seconds off the pace. Schumacher followed, and although the German made a small error on his lap, that didn't stop him from going quickest.