Giancarlo Fisichella and Ralph Firman got the most out of the car-tyre-engine package at their disposal to post times within three tenths of one another on their way to 13th and 14th places respectively.

The Italian’s time is two seconds off pole position, which was resolved at the end of a thrilling battle between the top three teams. In warm and dry conditions, Ralf Schumacher looked to have set an unbeatable time when his Williams team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya failed to better it. Then championship leader Michael Schumacher rumbled down pit lane to start his run. Despite a lurid front wheel lock up, he managed to pip his brother’s time. Last man out was Kimi Raikkonen, by virtue of having been fastest on Friday. He repeated his time sheet topping performance this afternoon to take the first pole position of his F1 career. The unemotional McLaren man showed his delight with a faint smile!

The times were very close, the top six all within the same half second, in the order, Raikkonen, M. Schumacher, R. Schumacher, Montoya, Barrichello and Trulli.

Nick Heidfeld was the only driver not to record a time, as the German spun off in the Sauber at Turn 1. Sunday’s forecast is for hot sunny weather so, as usual, tyre performance and strategy will be the deciding factors.

SATURDAY PRACTICE 1
Ralph Firman 17th       1:34.967   14 laps
Giancarlo Fisichella 18th   1:35.332  13 laps

SATURDAY PRACTICE 2 
Giancarlo Fisichella 12th   1:33.214 20 laps
Ralph Firman  17th  1:34.827 4 laps

WARM-UP
Giancarlo Fisichella 14th   1:34.229 4 laps
Ralph Firman  15th  1:34.373 7 laps

QUALIFYING

GIANCARLO FISICHELLA 13th 1:33.553
CHASSIS NUMBER EJ13-04
“Thirteenth is nothing special but we were able to improve the balance compared to this morning so it’s better than it could have been.  As I said yesterday, I don’t think we are competitive enough.  It’s going to be difficult to score points in this race.”

RALPH FIRMAN 14th 1:33.827
CHASSIS NUMBER EJ13-03
“It was disappointing that I lost a lot of track time in practice this morning as I think it may have cost me in qualifying.  We haven’t had any other problems and it’s worked out really well all weekend apart from that.  I’m quite happy with how qualifying went although I did made a small mistake on the lap.  You can never get it absolutely perfect but you can always aim to get it better and I’m looking forward to the race tomorrow.  It will be interesting to see how we end up.”

GARY ANDERSON
DIRECTOR OF RACE AND TEST ENGINEERING
“Qualifying didn’t turn out too bad.  As always it’s hard to know how we compare to the rest, with different strategies, so we’re just doing what we think is right for us.  Having two cars side by side on the grid is reasonable, as it just shows that is the pace of the car.  Ralph’s come on well since the beginning of the year, to be up there almost matching Giancarlo.  He’s less than three tenths of a second off and I think it’s a pretty creditable position.  We are hoping for a nice safe first corner, a good race and some points if we are lucky.”

T-car chassis EJ13-02 (set up for Ralph Firman)