Team Rundown: Friday 2003 Brazilian GP

By Andrew Hooper
April 5 2003

 

 

  
Team Rundown
 
Scuderia Ferrari: Rubens Barrichello 2nd, Michael Schumacher 5th

The Ferrari team was surprised to be beaten by Mark Webber's Jaguar in the final moments of the first qualifying session. The conditions were obviously important and while Webber was running without rain Michael Schumacher was unlucky to go out when the rain was at its worst.

"This is what the rules intended," said Jean Todt. "The field is mixed up. Rubens had good conditions but Michael had the worst."


BMW WilliamsF1 Team: Ralf Schumacher 13th, Juan Pablo Montoya 17th

There was disappointment at Williams with Ralf Schumacher having a clean lap when the conditions were not very good and Juan Pablo Montoya going off on his run.

"When I braked for Turn Six the rear went away from me," Montoya said. "I thought I would lose about four seconds or more and I was pretty surprised that it was less than that."

BMW's Mario Theissen reckoned that Montoya had been too optimistic.

"Twice he was too optimistic," he said. "Once he got away with it. Ralf had worse conditions but he did not make any mistakes."

The team was frustrated because there was no opportunity to evaluate how much of an improvement the new components have brought to the FW25.

West McLaren Mercedes: Kimi Raikkonen 3rd, David Coulthard 4th

"Today's qualifying session mean that it is difficult to read exactly who is quick and who is not quick," said McLaren's technical director Adrian Newey. "But the same thing could happen tomorrow. The weather is good or bad depending on how you look at it. It is good if you want a mixed up grid but bad if you want to know who is quick. We will have to see what happens tomorrow."

Mild Seven Renault F1 Team: Fernando Alonso 9th, Jarno Trulli 12th

The Renault testing programme on Friday morning was somewhat spoiled when the rain came and the team was unable to run as much as had been hoped. Jarno Trulli felt that he had had the worst of the weather conditions in qualifying.

"I did not take any risks," he said.

Fernando Alonso had a big spin the morning session and decided that he would be careful.

"The track this afternoon was not as wet as it was in the morning," he said, "but it was still tricky. The lap time was OK but the most important thing will be how we perform tomorrow."

Sauber Petronas: Heinz-Harald Frentzen 10th, Nick Heidfeld 16th

"The conditions changed before Heinz's run," said Peter Sauber, "and then they got better for other people towards the end of the session and so they were able to go faster. Nick had a problem in the morning session with his hydraulics and he lost track time and so he was cautious on his run this afternoon."

Jordan Ford: Giancarlo Fisichella 14th, Ralph Firman 18th

It was a disappointing day for the Jordan team.

"To say that we are disappointment is an understatement," said chief engineer Gary Anderson. "Giancarlo had oversteer and no grip and it was doubly difficult for Ralph because at the end of the test session this morning he tried a practice start and the car got stuck in gear. We had to spend the best part of free practice trying to sort the problem and ended up switching the rear end from the spare on to Ralph's race car. It meant he only had five minutes at the end of the session and two laps in the wet."

Jaguar Racing: Mark Webber 1st, Antonio Pizzonia 8th

Mark Webber surprised everyone by setting the fastest time of the first qualifying session. The conditions in the session were changing constantly and the men at the end of the session had an advantage.

"The guys came on the radio and said that I was on pole after my run," Webber said. "I thought that was OK but I knew that there was still Olivier Panis to come. We are really happy . it is one thing to do good times in testing but quite another to do it at a race. It is really good for the guys. The conditions were changing a lot and it was really a question of getting to grips with the tyres. I don't mind the rain but I didn't want to risk the car. It was just a matter of hitting the apexes. When Michael Schumacher was out the rain was definitely at its worst. It was a good lap and very enjoyable."

Antonio Pizzonia had a difficult day, crashing heavily in the morning and having to go into qualifying in the spare car.

"It was so dangerous," he said. "You could not go on to full throttle. The car just aquaplaned on the straight. There was nothing I could do."

Lucky Strike BAR Honda: Jacques Villeneuve 7th, Jenson Button no time

Jacques Villeneuve was a promising seventh fastest at the end of first qualifying.

"Jacques was happy with his lap," reported technical director Geoff Willis," particularly because an electrical problem this morning took about 15 minutes to fix and so he lost valuable track time. Jenson had more oversteer than in the morning and coming on to the straight out of Turn Five he had snap oversteer. He said that it was a big moment and he took out two marker boards and damaged the rear wing. We had no option but to abandon the lap."

European Minardi Cosworth: Jos Verstappen 15th, Justin Wilson 19th

There was a promising performance from Jos Verstappen in difficult circumstances.

"That was the maximum that I could get out of this car," he said. It was pretty driveable in the wet. Considering that I only had one lap in the rain this morning we were basically guessing at the set-up, but it worked out pretty well.

Justin Wilson was disappointed with his lap time and was mystified as to why the car was not quicker. The team reported that there did not seem to any engine problems but clearly all was not right.

Panasonic Toyota Racing: Olivier Panis 6th, Cristiano da Matta 11th

"We should be happy with sixth and 11th considering that we did not have much running time this morning," said technical director Gustav Brunner. "We did not have a proper set-up on either car and both drivers opted for safety runs. Congratulations to Jaguar and Webber on a stunning performance."

Bridgestone

Hisao Suganuma: "I am a little bit disappointed with today's performance because when Michael went out it started to rain more heavily compared to the conditions that Rubens had for his lap. We are in the same situation as Michelin with the basically intermediate tyres. We are only allowed to have one wet spec. We think we should have at least two wet specs in case it rains like this in the race. If we have a proper wet race drivers are going to struggle.

Michelin

Pierre Dupasquier: "There were different track conditions during the qualifying session, and only one type of tyre to cope with them. Our product performed very well and showed the improvements we've made over the winter. The mid-session rain would have needed deeper grooves, but otherwise we're happy with the result."
 
 
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