Saturday August 12th, 2000

Schumacher takes fifth pole of the season

Michael Schumacher's first run out of the pits at the start of the all important qualifying session for tomorrow's Hungarian GP was good enough to take the pole by almost four tenths of a second from his two regular McLaren-Mercedes rivals David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen. It was his fifth pole position of the season and the sixth for Ferrari this year, Schumacher's 28th pole position of his career equaling the late Juan Manuel Fangio's record of poles. "It was good to take the pole for this race where it so difficult to overtake. For sure it is the race that counts, but starting from pole position is already a good basis for that," said Michael, who had to fight his car around the slippery, bumpy twisting Hungaroring circuit to the delight of the spectators. "It's never easy here and the car is never perfect. You have to take chances to get a quick lap," admitted Michael who was almost six tenths of a second under last year's pole. Rubens Barrichello was only eighth tenths off his teammate's time, but that was far enough back to put him in fifth place on the grid, the Brazilian not coping with the conditions as well as Schumacher who had two more runs, but failed to go faster.

McLaren overshadowed by Schumacher

Once again it was David Coulthard who led the McLaren challenge against Ferrari, but this time he had to admit they were no matches for the Italian cars. "We did not optimize our car on low fuel settings. I had too much understeer on the first and second segments of the lap," said David, who was hoping to put up a better fight in the race. "The car is quite good in race trim and it's a long way," he pointed out. Mika Hakkinen admitted he had been struggling all weekend to find a good set-up for his chassis. "We made big changes throughout qualifying, but I still wasn't happy after my last run," said Mika who also found traffic and was unable to better third fastest. Coulthard also picked up a $2000 speeding fine in the pit lane!

Ralf in the fight for a podium finish

Ralf Schumacher made another impressive session with the Williams-BMW which he put on the second row of the grid, the car a strong contender for a podium finish on Sunday along with his teammate Jenson Button who also did a good job to take eighth fastest time on his first visit to the track.

Frentzen shares row three with Rubens

Heinz-Harald Frentzen took sixth spot on the third row of the grid for Jordan, the German co0mplaining of too much understeer in the second half of the lap, but still running quick times. His teammate Jarno Trulli, less comfortable with an under steering car than his teammate was unable to better 12th position.

In brief...

Two teams whose cars did not adapt well to this high downforce track were the BAR and Arrows teams. Despite their best efforts, Villeneuve could do no better than 16th on the grid beside De La Rosa, 15th in the Arrows. Zonta's BAR was 18th and Verstappen back in 20th place. Eddie Irvine was disappointed not to better 10th place for Jaguar, while the two Prost drivers were completely lost on their chassis settings, Alesi taking 14th spot with Heidfeld back in 19th. Fisichella was confident of a finish in the points, "if Michael stays out of my way this time," he said, while his teammate Wurz was a lot happier after changing to Fisichella's set-up and took 11th place. Sauber were going well here. Mika Salo made ninth place on the grid after a clear second run, his chances of going quicker spoiled by traffic. Diniz also found traffic and ended up 13th quickest.

Pos  Driver         Team                 Times                 
 1.  M.Schumacher   Ferrari              1:17.514  184.612 km/h
 2.  Coulthard      McLaren Mercedes     1:17.886   +  0.372
 3.  Hakkinen       McLaren Mercedes     1:17.922   +  0.408
 4.  R.Schumacher   Williams BMW         1:18.321   +  0.807
 5.  Barrichello    Ferrari              1:18.330   +  0.816
 6.  Frentzen       Jordan Mugen-Honda   1:18.523   +  1.009
 7.  Fisichella     Benetton Playlife    1:18.607   +  1.093
 8.  Button         Williams BMW         1:18.699   +  1.185
 9.  Salo           Sauber Petronas      1:18.748   +  1.234
10.  Irvine         Jaguar Cosworth      1:19.008   +  1.494
11.  Wurz           Benetton Playlife    1:19.259   +  1.745
12.  Trulli         Jordan Mugen-Honda   1:19.266   +  1.752
13.  Diniz          Sauber Petronas      1:19.451   +  1.937
14.  Alesi          Prost Peugeot        1:19.626   +  2.112
15.  de la Rosa     Arrows Supertec      1:19.897   +  2.383
16.  Villeneuve     BAR Honda            1:19.937   +  2.423
17.  Herbert        Jaguar Cosworth      1:19.956   +  2.442
18.  Zonta          BAR Honda            1:20.272   +  2.758
19.  Heidfeld       Prost Peugeot        1:20.481   +  2.967
20.  Verstappen     Arrows Supertec      1:20.609   +  3.095
21.  Gene           Minardi Fondmetal    1:20.654   +  3.140
22.  Mazzacane      Minardi Fondmetal    1:20.905   +  3.391

All timing unofficial

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