By role
October 11 2003

It was a tough qualifying today at Suzuka after light rain hitted the circuit as the leaders were about to exit. The conditions on the track started to affect at the time than Alonso did his lap. The Spaniard was more than 1.3 seconds slower than pole man Rubens Barrichello. Alonso, however, was able to finish 5th and has serious chances for reaching the podium tomorrow at the race.

Trulli, on the other hand, who exited last in today's qualifying after setting yesterday the best time had to abort his lap due to the conditions of the track and he will start from the pits tomorrow. Quite bad luck for a driver that was having a great weekend and was setting consistently fast laps.

The session was dominated by the Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello who set a pole time of 1.31.713, close to 0.7 seconds faster than Juan Pablo Montoya.

The Toyotas of Cristiano Da Matta and Olivier Panis finished 3rd and 4th taking advantage of the dry track conditions and they were followed by Fernando Alonso on 5th.

Mark Webber was 6th followed by David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen.

Michael Schumacher who just needs a point to win his 6th World Tittle will start the race from the 14th place and will have a challange in order to try to finish within the points. Also, Raikkonen, who needs to win to get the tittle will start from 8th and will also have to fight hard to finish first.

For the Constructor Championship the battle seems more interesting as Williams has fallen behind Ferrari. Montoya would have to jump Barrichello for the lead and hope that his teammate, Ralf Schumacher, is able to score in order to keep the hopes alive.

Ralf, however, will also start from the pits after a spin in the last chicane that made him go to the pit lane aborting his lap.