WilliamsF1 looking good for British GP qualifying
Marc Gene
By Andrew Hooper
July 10 2004
After finishing the final practice session in 5th and 6th the WilliamsF1 team is looking good for Silverstone qualifying. Again it would be Marc Gene who would lead his team-mate Juan Pablo Motoya in this session. Marc is certainly trying to make an impression with the team
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British GP Saturday 4th Practice |
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| The end
of the final practice session for the British Grand Prix would see Marc
and Juan Pablo finish in fifth and sixth positions. Both drivers were
able to find some extra pace from their cars as they prepared for the
qualifying sessions.
Kimi
Raikkonen would come away from the 3rd practice session with the fastest
time. Now, as the teams prepared for qualifying, he would have one more
practice session to stamp his authority on proceedings. After having
missed the first Saturday practice it was not surprising to see
Minardi's Zsolt Baumgartner and Gianmaria Bruni be first out in the
session. Next out were the Jaguar's of Mark Webber and Christian Klien.
A 1m:21.161 for Webber while Klein would go slightly slower with a
1:21.437.
Kimi Raikkonen was out
early and would easily move to the top of the times with a 1m:20.311. He
would quickly improve his time with a 1:19.752. Renault's Fernando
Alonso would go second with a 1m:20.881, while Sauber's Giancarlo
Fisichella moves into third. Raikkonen would pit.
McLaren team-mate David Coulthard would set a time of 1m:22.942 on his
first lap, finishing in seventh. Renault's Jarno Trulli would move into
fifth with a 1m:21.460. BAR's Jenson Button was now in fourth with a
1m:21.255. Both Button and Trulli would improve their times to move into
third and fourth respectively.
Michael Schumacher would finish his lap in second with a 1m:19.929. With
fifteen minutes of the session run Michael would return to his pit while
team-mate Barrichello would move into third with a 1m:20.012. Even with
Raikkonen's pace both Ferrari's were looking strong. For WilliamsF1 Marc
Gene was in seventh with a 1m:20.748.
Showing that McLaren still to contend with Ferrari Rubens would set a
time of 1:19.484 to go fastest. Juan Pablo would move up to seventh with
a time of 1m:20.724, pushing Marc down one place. In a continuation of
his good form in France Fernando Alonso would go fastest with a time of
1m:19.169.
With twenty minutes left all the teams were getting ready for this
afternoon's qualifying. Joining the drivers who had gone fastest was
Jarno Trulli who would go fastest with a time of 1m:19.171. But this
would not last long as Raikkonen would drop his times into the 1m:18
second bracket with a time of 1m:18.280 to go back on top of the times.
Michael Schumacher was back out on the track but in his effort to set a
quick time he would go off the track seeing him with a walk back to the
pits. But one of the favourite teams to find the going difficult was BAR
with Takuma Sato only in tenth with a 1m:20.837. Juan Pablo would
suddenly find some extra speed and his times would move into the 1:18
seconds with a 1m:18.912 to be second.
Felipe
Massa would set a time of 1m:20.285 to be ninth. Joining Juan Pablo at
the front a time of 1m:18.832 from Marc Gene would see him move into
second pushing his team-mate in third. Everyone was pushing hard to see
how they would go in qualifying. With eight minutes remaining in the
session the next driver to set a quick time would be BAR's Jenson Button
who would set a time of 1m:18.414 to now be in second. This was a
surprise as they seemed to be struggling. Trulli would go third with a
1m:18.694.
Rubens Barrichello would go fastest through the first sector with a 24.8
but in sector two he would lose time to Kimi. A 1m:18.623 would see him
in third. Team-mate Michael Schumacher was back on the track after his
earlier problems. He would set a time of 1m:18.951 to be down in eighth.
So with the end of the session Marc and Juan Pablo would finish in fifth
and sixth, with a test driver, like Anthony Davidson for BAR, again
their good form. Qualifying will be difficult for the WilliamsF1 drivers
as they have not been near the top of the times. |
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Pos
Driver Team Time Laps
1. Raikkonen McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:18.280 14
2. Button BAR-Honda (M) 1:18.414 + 0.134 12
3. Barrichello Ferrari (B) 1:18.623 + 0.343 13
4. Trulli Renault (M) 1:18.694 + 0.414 14
5. Gene WilliamsF1-BMW (M) 1:18.832 + 0.552 10
6. Montoya WilliamsF1-BMW (M) 1:18.912 + 0.632 11
7. Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1:18.919 + 0.639 11
8. M. Schumacher Ferrari (B) 1:18.951 + 0.671 8
9. Alonso Renault (M) 1:19.169 + 0.889 12
10. Fisichella Sauber-Petronas (B) 1:19.895 + 1.615 10
11. da Matta Toyota (M) 1:20.183 + 1.903 19
12. Massa Sauber-Petronas (B) 1:20.281 + 2.001 6
13. Webber Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 1:20.310 + 2.030 23
14. Panis Toyota (M) 1:20.531 + 2.251 16
15. Heidfeld Jordan-Ford (B) 1:20.726 + 2.446 12
16. Sato BAR-Honda (M) 1:20.837 + 2.557 8
17. Klien Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 1:20.913 + 2.633 18
18. Baumgartner Minardi-Cosworth (B) 1:21.980 + 3.700 15
19. Pantano Jordan-Ford (B) 1:22.014 + 3.734 11
20. Bruni Minardi-Cosworth (B) 1:23.941 + 5.661 12
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