By role
September 27 2003

Renault has led this weekend in 4 of the 7 sessions this weekend, however, it was not going to happen in the key one today. Yesterday, Jarno Trulli clearly showed his pace in qualifying after setting he best time in all the sessions. Today Trulli continued to be competitive by setting the second best time on the Free Practice and his teammate was able to lead the warm-up just minutes before the official Saturday Qualifying started.

It ws during the warm-up where Trulli made his only mistake of the weekend and he damaged his car heavily. The mechanics worked against the clock to have the car ready for the qaulifying.

At the end of the session dominated by the McLaren of Kimi Raikkonen Alonso finished 6th and his teammate Trulli did his best to finish 10th.

It was a good lap for Alonso that has been struggling all weekend to find te perfect balance to his car, something he has not yet conquered:

"We have improved the car since this morning, and I was happier with the handling than during practice," said the Spaniard. "Nevertheless, it still feels nervous, with understeer in some corners and oversteer in others. Still, I will be starting from a competitive position tomorrow."

Alonso is fully aware that he is surrounded by title contenders Michael Schumacher and Juan Panblo Montoya. The intentions of the Spaniard is to stay away of troubles:

"I know the title contenders are close by me on the grid, but I will be looking to make up positions at the start and drive a normal race. I don't want to disrupt the fight for the title and the surest way of doing that is to finish in front of them." He added with a grin.

Trulli could not bank on his earlier performances and had to settle for the 10th best car:

"Firstly, I want to thank all the mechanics, who did a fantastic job to get the car ready after my accident in the warm-up," Trulli said. "As for the qualifying lap, nothing felt quite right: I made small mistakes all the way round the lap, and I perhaps had some trouble adapting to changing track conditions.

However, Trulli hopes that the good performance showed by the car can see him in a better position at the end of the race:

"It is disappointing to start from so far back, but we have already shown this weekend that our package is very competitive. We have chosen a good strategy and I am intending to drive an attacking race tomorrow." He concluded.