For several years now, Atlas F1 kept an eye on the battle between teammates with a simple measurement: comparing the qualifying times of each driver against his teammate's. The new qualifying format has made the comparison somewhat difficult - potentially, every driver could be running with a different fuel load. Moreover, with only one lap each in two back-to-back sessions, small errors could divert the results of any comparison significantly. But, we believe that over an entire season all these factors even out and the overall qualifying differentials between teammates remains the best tool to compare the natural capabilities of the drivers. So, with a few charts and several observations, it's time to see who's hot and who's not...

With sixteen double qualifying sessions completed for 2004, the differentials are once again on a roll! Let's see which drivers deserve bragging rights.

China Notables

• Exclusions: The Ferrari duo of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello, and the Minardi duo of Gianmaria Bruni and Zsolt Baumgratner have been excluded from the chart of the second qualifying session, because both Schumacher and Bruni spun off and failed to set a time.

• Changes since Italy: Olivier Panis is back to being faster than Ricardo Zonta in the second qualifying chart.

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