Team Rundown: Saturday 2003 Hungarian GP

By Andrew Hooper
August 23 2003

 

 

  
Team Rundown - Saturday Qualifying
 
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro: Rubens Barrichello 5th, Michael Schumacher 8th.

It was a disappointing day for Ferrari.

"Rubens was competitive in the first two sectors," said technical director Ross Brawn. "After that there was too much understeer. Michael did not have enough grip and maybe he made some mistakes but as we saw in the warm-up the car was capable of a 1m22.2s so it could have been better."

"My lap was perfect until the last sector," said Barrichello. "The last three corners are the crucial ones and it was difficult for us to find a set-up for these. I had too much understeer and that is where I lost my time."

Schumacher said he had no explanation for his poor lap time. "I will have to do the hard work in the race," he said.



BMW WilliamsF1 Team: Ralf Schumacher 2nd, Juan Pablo Montoya 4th.

"It looks like we are in for an exciting race," said Sam Michael. "We are pretty happy with our grid positions and we have a very good race set-up."

Ralf Schumacher said that he was worried about starting on the right hand side of the track. "It was a good result for me," he said, "but unfortunately I am on the wrong side of the track. I had a good first sector and I was surprised to lose so much to Alonso in the middle sector. I had done a clean lap with no mistakes."

Montoya said he was also satisfied. "There are a lot of cars between myself and Michael Schumacher," he said. "When I saw Michael's time I took it a bit easier than I needed to do because I knew his time was not good. Compared to last year here I have done really well."



West McLaren Mercedes: Kimi Raikkonen 7th, David Coulthard 9th.

It was not a good day for McLaren but the two drivers hope that their strategy for the race will be an advantage.

"I am reasonably optimistic," said David Coulthard. "We have a strategy to stop later than the opposition and hopefully all those ahead of me will clear out of the way. I am on the clean side of the track and so I should be able to jump Michael at the start. This year the car has tended to race better than it qualifies so I hope I can have a good race. I had a bit of trouble in Turn Five because it was slippery and I went a bit wide and lost four-tenths to Kimi. The key in the race will be Trulli because if he gets in the way we are going to lose out."



Mild Seven Renault F1 Team: Fernando Alonso 1st, Jarno Trulli 6th.

Fernando Alonso gave Renault its second pole position of the year.

"Fernando did an exceptional lap and he deserves this pole position," said chief engineer Pat Symonds. "Jarno had oversteer for some reason from halfway round his lap. That is a pity because our two drivers have been doing similar lap times all weekend. Even with the changes overtaking is going to be difficult tomorrow so we have a big advantage."



Sauber Petronas: Nick Heidfeld 11th, Heinz-Harald Frentzen 17th.

It was a disappointing day for Sauber. Heidfeld was pleased to be 11th but Frentzen chose a different strategy but then made a mistake in Turn Two and lost time.



Jordan Ford: Giancarlo Fisichella 13th, Zsolt Baumgartner 19th.

"It has been a really trying weekend for us," said Gary Anderson. "The important thing is that Ralph is OK. Things like this should not happen but unfortunately they do. It was good that Zsolt was able to step in, particularly as he was able to do the testing on Friday morning. He did a really competent job in qualifying and had he not accidentally switched to the fuel saving map on his flying lap rather than the slowing down lap then he would probably have been almost a second quicker. It was an easy mistake for a novice to make."

Fisichella reckoned he could not have done much more than he did. "I actually had quite a good balance for qualifying,' he said. "It was a good lap, probably one of the best of the weekend so I am pretty pleased."

Baumgartner was also satisfied. "I have mixed feelings about getting the drive," he said, "because it is unfortunate for Ralph. I had hoped to be ahead of the two Minardi's but I am not far behind Verstappen. The main thing is to avoid making mistakes."



Jaguar Racing: Mark Webber 3rd, Justin Wilson 12th.

Mark Webber matched his best qualifying performance this year with third on the grid.

"I don't want to do a lap like that again!" he said. "It was right on the edge. I really don't think I could have done any better than that."

The team was also pleased.

"It was an excellent performance from Mark," said Dr Mark Gillan. "He did a stunning lap. Justin changed the settings just before qualifying and he was surprised by how much better the car felt. He felt that he had not got the best out the car in the circumstances and was quite disappointed."



Lucky Strike BAR Honda: Jenson Button 14th, Jacques Villeneuve 16th.

It was another disappointing session for BAR.

"I pushed too hard and made a couple of mistakes," said Button. "It was not a smooth lap but I have shown before that I can fight back from a poor grid position although this is not a circuit where you would want to be doing that."

Villeneuve was also disappointed. "The first two sectors were good but I could not make the front tyres last for the whole lap. The last four corners were pretty poor. It is going to be tough in the race."



European Minardi Cosworth: Jos Verstappen 18th, Nicolas Kiesa 20th.

"It was the best we could do," said team boss Paul Stoddart. "Nicolas is obviously very disappointed because he could have done much better but he went wide in the middle sector and that cost him dearly. Jos did a good lap. It did not look spectacular but it was fast. I expect that most people will be doing two stops in the race."



Panasonic Toyota Racing: Olivier Panis 10th, Cristiano da Matta 15th.

"We came here wanting to get a car in the top 10 in qualifying and so we are happy," said general manager Keizo Takahashi. "We know it is not a good track for us but we are looking to pick up some more points."

Da Matta was further back than he had hoped because of oversteer which meant he was very cautious on his run."



Bridgestone: Hisao Suganuma: "We realise the importance of overtaking on this track so we would have hoped for a better qualifying. But we still think we will be competitive in race trim."



Michelin: Pierre Dupasquier: "We have eight cars in the top 10. It is excellent. What is astounding to us is the different performances of the different drivers in the different sectors. It is going to be hot tomorrow but we are going to be very competitive."
 
 
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