Grand Prix of San Marino

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Only fourth race of the season and the heat is already on with Williams BMW leading in the Constructors’ Championship by 6 points while M. Shumacher leads in the Drivers’ Championship with 24 points.

This weekend’s race has even more significance as it happens to be on the Ferrari’s home turf. Ferrari rising to the challenge with both Barrichello and Shumacher putting up stellar performances. Here are some of the highlights from today’s practice run.

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Ferrari fastest on Friday 12 Apr 2002

Ferrari made the best possible start to their San Marino Grand Prix weekend on Friday as Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello set the pace on the first day of practice at Imola. In constantly wet or damp conditions, Jordan’s Giancarlo Fisichella was their nearest challenger around the Italian circuit.

Schumacher’s time remained unbeaten, despite the world champion spinning out of the second session with around 15 minutes of practice remaining. David Coulthard was fourth fastest for McLaren, immediately ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, while Heinz-Harald Frentzen completed the top six for Arrows.

After a very wet first one-hour session in the morning, the times did not tumble as expected in the afternoon, despite the still damp track beginning to dry. However, both Ferraris did improve with Barrichello, in his first competitive outing in the F2002, leapfrogging Fisichella to go second.

Schumacher meanwhile, having already improved on his morning time, looked on course to go faster still. However, after setting the best time in the first two sectors, he then lost control of his car at the Variante Alta and was forced to abandon it on the grass after it appeared to stall.

Juan Pablo Montoya was the first of the big hitters to improve in the second hour, after the Williams driver was only 19th fastest in the morning. After surviving a spin with just four minutes to go he finished the day in ninth place, immediately ahead of team mate Ralf Schumacher, who made several trips across the grass as he, like many others, struggled for grip on intermediate tyres.

Of the numerous spinners, Jarno Trulli was the only one to sustain any real damage to his car after his Renault slid into the Imola wall. He nevertheless finished the day in seventh place, while team mate Jenson Button was down in 14th.

At Jordan both Fisichella and team mate Takuma Sato survived more than one spin during the sessions. Sato failed to match the impressive pace of his more experienced colleague, but nevertheless set the day’s 11th fastest time as the team made the best of Honda’s latest evolution engine.

Sauber’s Felipe Massa got the better of the two Williams to finish the day eighth for the Swiss team. This was despite a dramatic spin into the Tosa hairpin during the second session. Team mate Nick Heidfeld was 12th in the time sheets after being leapfrogged by Sato in the final minutes.

Jaguar coped well in the changeable conditions with Eddie Irvine and Pedro de la Rosa finishing the day 13th and 16th respectively, the R3 looking particularly strong in terms of straight-line speed around Imola.

BAR struggled to match Honda-powered rivals Jordan with Jacques Villeneuve in 15th place and Olivier Panis 17th. Meanwhile, Arrows experienced mixed fortunes with Frentzen’s impressive sixth place in stark contrast to the 18th position of team mate Enrique Bernoldi.

Toyota seemed unable to get to grips with the wet conditions as Mika Salo and Allan McNish finished the day 20th and 22nd respectively. McNish’s day got worse after he was also handed a fine for speeding in the pit lane.

At Minardi, who consider San Marino to be practically a home race, Mark Webber got the better of Salo to take 19th place, while team mate Alex Yoong was 22nd fastest.

With low track temperatures of around 9°C and the wet/damp circuit, many had predicted the conditions would favour the Bridgestone runners over the Michelin teams, both using their supplier’s latest wet and intermediate compounds. Ferrari’s dominance appeared to confirm this, although notably the top ten was equally split between the two companies.

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Ferraris pace is pretty impressive but they are on the Bridgestone runner which is clearly better than the Michelins in the cooler and damp conditions. I think Michael Schumacher would be on pole tomorrow if it stays wet and has a great chance to win if that happens cos its really tough to overtake at Imola. On the other hand if qualifying is dry then Ralf or Montoya should be able to get on the front two rows.

Ralf may have the advantage here since he won last year and looks very strong - 2nd in the championship and already with a win in Malaysia.

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Montoya has to win this race to put Ferrari under pressure. I hope he will succeed.

“w*Hy is **It thaT* i*F* y*Ou kiLL* a Man in wa*R* y*Ou aRe a hEro,* but
if you k*Ill a maN* out*Side of **War you are callEd a murdeRer *?**”

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There you have it. Ferrari presses on with its historic domination of Imola with Shumacher, and Barrichello clinching the starting grid. 45th pole position for Shumi, and counting..

Schumacher seizes 45th career pole 13 Apr 2002

Michael Schumacher snatched his 45th career pole off Rubens Barrichello in the dying seconds of qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix. The German had been unable to match the Brazilian, who had his first qualifying in the F2002, but a final run saw him just secure the top slot.
"It was a hard fight as my team-mate really pushed me. It was good fun!" Schumacher said in a team press release. "In the end, I was lucky that I had no traffic on my last run and I made no mistakes. On my first run I had traffic, on the second I ran wide and on the third I made a mistake.

"Because we had done little running in the dry, it was a difficult session, not helped by gusting wind. We made changes to the car throughout the session. I am confident about the race. Bridgestone has made a good step forward again and we seem to be well sorted for tomorrow.

"When I start the race, I will have competed in more races for Ferrari than any other driver. That means a lot to me as it shows the mutual confidence we have in one another."

"Having been on provisional pole for most of the session, of course I would have liked to have kept it. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the challenge and the fight was fun," his team mate Barrichello added.

"In the morning, I was not sure about the engine in my race car, so I used the spare for the whole qualifying session, while my race car became Michael's spare. It was a bit of a gamble as the car had not yet run this weekend. It was the car I had driven in a Barcelona test before the Brazilian GP. We decided not to do a fourth run and I was quite happy with my lap time.

"The car was well balanced even though we had to guess a little bit for the set up. I aborted my last run, because a car in front of me had put dirt on the track between turns 14 and 15."

Technical director Ross Brawn was full of praise for both drivers: "Rubens put in a tremendous lap. We only got the right set up for Michael's car right at the end. I hope everyone enjoyed qualifying as much as I did! It was great seeing our two drivers compete like that and have a reasonable margin over the rest of the field. To have both cars on the front row is fantastic.

"However, tomorrow's result is not a foregone conclusion. We will have to make a good start and work on the strategy as well as ensuring we get both cars to the finish. If we can do all that, then we have a good chance of winning. The 2002 car is quite a bit better than its predecessor and it is good to be racing with all the same cars. It should be an exciting race."

[This message has been edited by Abdullah k (edited April 13, 2002).]

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Damn, Montoya 4th place...that will be tough to beat Schumacher!
Hope he resigns soon.

“w*Hy is **It thaT* i*F* y*Ou kiLL* a Man in wa*R* y*Ou aRe a hEro,* but
if you k*Ill a maN* out*Side of **War you are callEd a murdeRer *?**”

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Nah..Montoya is one heck of a fighter and a fine race driver

http://www3.pak.org/gupshup/smilies/ok.gif

. Wouldn’t count him out.

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Well Abdullah K u see it was of no use..the fighting spirit.
Ferrari virtually "out played" BWM.

“w*Hy is **It thaT* i*F* y*Ou kiLL* a Man in wa*R* y*Ou aRe a hEro,* but
if you k*Ill a maN* out*Side of **War you are callEd a murdeRer *?**”

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Hey..Ferrari was just riding on the emotions of home crowd. What a spectacular text book style victory..no one even came closer. But it's still very early in the season and Montoya is definitely the rising superstar of Formula 1. With that kind of talent, there's no doubt in my mind, that he will have many podium appearences..

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Hey..Ferrari was just riding on the emotions of home crowd. What a spectacular text book style victory..no one even came closer. But it's still very early in the season and Montoya is definitely the rising superstar of Formula 1. With that kind of talent, there's no doubt in my mind, that he will have many podium appearences..