MANAMA, 3 April 2005 — Formula One Championship leader Fernando Alonso beat back the Ferrari fightback to put pacesetters Renault on provisional pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix yesterday, while Michael Schumacher raised Ferrari’s flagging spirits with third place in the first qualifying for the team’s new car.
The decisive final session is today, with grid positions decided by aggregate times.
Alonso lapped the desert Sakhir circuit in one minute 29.848 seconds with Toyota’s Jarno Trulli second with Schumacher finishing third fastest. “It has been a good weekend again, I had no problems in the car at all,” said Alonso, who won the last race in Malaysia from pole and has 16 points to Schumacher’s two. “The car is really quick again, really nice to drive and also the tires seem to work again perfectly on hot tracks and we have also I think a big advantage on that.”
Schumacher’s performance, on a hot and windy afternoon with track temperatures of 54 degrees Celsius, boosted a team used to dominating but now playing catch-up after their old car proved way off the pace in Malaysia.
Schumacher said: “It is fair to say that Malaysia gave us a wake-up call and I must thank the team for the great effort it has made to move the new car schedule forward.”
“It was important to have it here in Bahrain because of the new engine rule,” he added. “All the work has paid off, we are back near the top and the gap to the two guys ahead of me is quite reasonable. We and Bridgestone seem to be back on track.” Winners of 15 of last year’s 18 grands prix, Ferrari have rushed their new F2005 into action two races ahead of schedule to try and limit Renault’s early advantage.
While the decision clearly paid off for Schumacher, Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello limped through the session with a patched-up gearbox after a failure on Friday forced him to miss three practice sessions, and was 15th. Germany’s Nick Heidfeld was fourth quickest for Williams, ahead of Italian Giancarlo Fisichella in the second Renault and Australian Mark Webber for Williams. McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen was seventh and Red Bull’s Austrian Christian Klien eighth.
Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa, replacing the injured Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya at McLaren, was ninth fastest after starting first on a dusty track.
Indian driver Narain Karthikeyan, meanwhile, is looking to continue his perfect run of Formula One finishes after a good performance in first qualifying. Karthikeyan, who finished 15th on his debut for Jordan in Australia and 11th at the last race in Malaysia, is chasing a hat trick of finishes and hoping to even break into the top ten this weekend. And after finishing 17th in first qualifying here yesterday he said: “I really enjoyed driving on this circuit and my lap was good. Now I am looking forward to racing and hope we finish again.”
Karthikeyan, who joined the Grand Prix grid this season, beat his teammate Tiago Montiero in the first qualifying session and should outqualify him again in the second here today morning. Karthikeyan admitted: “The air and track temperatures were very high today. They are expected to be the same tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see what will happen during the race.”
— additional input from agencies
