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Page 3
Fourth, and struggling to keep pace with Williams team mate Montoya, Schumacher R struggled to find a good set up yet remained hopeful for the race. "Unfortunately for me qualifying was less successful than expected," he said. "My car alternated between oversteer and understeer and it also did not help that on one of my runs I had to slow down because of yellow flags. Now for the first time this year, the Schumacher family starts from the second row, it will be exciting for sure."
Continuing his impressive qualifying record, Jarno Trulli claimed 5th for Jordan and with a 1:23.126s lap, the Italian pleased with everyone's efforts. "A great qualifying session for me," he declared. "I'm really happy for me and the team; we all did a great job and I'm looking forward to tomorrow because, with the help of this new tyre from Bridgestone for this weekend, we have a good chance of being competitive throughout the race."
Race day dawned hot and sunny with Schumacher topping the time sheets in morning warm up, the hope of a Ferrari victory began to gain momentum. His McLaren having apparently exorcised it's handling difficulties, Coulthard was second followed by Montoya's Williams and Barrichello. Fifth was Raikkonen, with the two Jordan's of Trulli and Jean Alesi next up, then Ralf Schumacher, Hakkinen and Villeneuve in 10th. Still awaking from the nightmare of the past week, the tifosi packed grandstands and paddock, were unusually calm before the start, with everyone's thoughts elsewhere. Shortly before the off, there was an obvious commotion involving Michael Schumacher. Concerned with a repeat of last years tragic opening lap - when fire marshal Paolo Ghislimberti lost his life, Schumacher was hell-bent on securing a unanimous verdict that no-one should overtake into the first two chicanes. "After what happened last year, we had a meeting this morning and it was decided after the start that there would be no overtaking over the first two chicanes," said Schumacher. Though many agreed with the proposal, for a few, such strategies were untenable. "I'm a racing driver and I'm going to race," declared Villeneuve. With the majority of team members against the idea, Mike Gascoyne - technical director of Benetton, gave his opinion: "We are here to race, we are a racing team. If we have safety issues we have flags to deal with that. We have come to this circuit, we are a professional team here to do a professional job and that is what we have informed our drivers. We will race the cars." |
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