Schumi sizzles as Ferrari lead the pack

Schumi sizzles as Ferrari lead the pack
Agence France Presse

Melbourne, March 3: Triple world champion Michael Schumacher sizzled in qualifying to lead a Ferrari front row grid monopoly for tomorrow’s Australian Formula One Grand Prix here.

Schumacher roared around the 5.303km Albert Park Circuit in an unofficial lap record time of one minute 26.892sec to signal Ferrari’s firm grip on season-opening GP.

Partnering him on the front row of the grid will be Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello, who was 0.371 seconds behind Schumacher with his best effort of 1:27.263.

Barrichello dislodged McLaren’s two-time world champion Mika Hakkinen from the front row with about 40 seconds left in the qualifying session.

Hakkinen, whose best lap was 1:27.461, will start on the second row of the grid with Jordan’s Heinz-Harald Frentzen, who was fourth quickest in 1:27.658.‘‘We know that the car is fast, this is the important bit, and now we have to show that it is reliable, that’s the next bit we can prove tomorrow,’’ said Schumacher.Team boss Jean Todt said: ‘‘Reliability will be the most important factor and at the moment I do not feel I can say this is one of our strong points.

‘‘Michael used the spare car, simply to check it out as it had never run before today on any track.’’ The Ferraris had just over half a second on McLaren’s No.1 Hakkinen, who remains confident of toppling the world champion team in tomorrow’s 58-lap 307-km race. Schumacher was surprised by how fast his Ferrari went in qualifying, coming in almost four seconds faster a lap than Hakkinen’s 1:30.556 pole time in last year’s race.

‘‘I would have expected two to three seconds (a lap), but I think the reason is that Bridgestone have done a superb tyre and Ferrari is once again a very good car even though these new rules are supposed to have compensated for that,’’ he said.

So confident was he of Ferrari’s superiority that Schumacher decided against risking further damaging his car in the morning practice session when he was again fastest.

He was worried about bearing problems in his front left wheel and got out of his car and looked on from television camera gantry as McLaren driver David Coulthard managed to better his time with his final flying lap of the session.