SPIELBERG, Austria, 18 May 2003 — Five-time world champion Michael Schumacher cut it fine as he claimed his third consecutive pole in today’s Austrian Grand Prix at the A1-Ring circuit yesterday.
Returning to the track where 12 months ago he and his Ferrari team courted controversy for using team orders Schumacher set the pace again but only just to beat Finn Kimi Raikkonen by 0.039 secs.
The German’s time of 1min 09.150secs was set after several small mistakes during his lap and on the final run of the session after it had looked like Raikkonen would claim his maiden Formula One pole.
Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya took third for Williams, 0.241 secs slower than Schumacher, with Nick Heidfeld ensuring four different teams filled the front two rows by finishing fourth for Sauber.
Brazilian Rubens Barrichello was fifth in the second Ferrari with Italian Jarno Trulli sixth for Renault. Briton Jenson Button was seventh for BAR-Honda in a very varied grid that suggests many different strategies will come into play today. Brazilian Antonio Pizzonia was eighth for Jaguar — his best qualifying performance in his first season in Formula One — with Italian Giancarlo Fisichella ninth for Jordan and German Ralf Schumacher tenth in the second Williams-BMW. Ralf Schumacher had gone out first after spinning out of Friday’s session that sets the order for yesterday’s grid-decider to put in a benchmark lap of 1:10.279.
Jordan’s Ralph Firman, nursing a bruised hand after a crash Friday, then came in with a time of 1:11.505. Fellow Briton Justin Wilson finished a further three seconds off the pace in his Minardi but his Dutch teammate Jos Verstappen failed to set a time after losing fourth and fifth gears and parking at the side of the track after the first corner of his flying lap.
Spaniard Fernando Alonso made a mistake at the Niki Lauda Kurve and endured a long trip across the gravel before completing his lap in 1:20.113 placing him on the last row of the grid. With half the runners gone, Heidfeld was fastest in the Sauber in 1:09.725, 0.165 secs ahead of Jarno Trulli’s Renault with the Williams-BMW of Schumacher third. Italian Giancarlo Fisichella and then Pizzonia bettered Heidfeld’s effort before Raikkonen posted a new best time of 1:09.189. Raikkonen’s teammate David Coulthard was next out but the Scot’s time was 1.704 secs slower than the Finn after a mistake at the Mobilkom Kurve. Button failed to pressure the top times and finished 0.746 seconds off the pace of Raikkonen and his Canadian teammate Jacques Villeneuve was much slower after going wide in the first sector of his lap.
