Motorsports News
Schumacher, out drives Montoya to grab "Pole" at Monza GP, Italy
By Ferrari F-1 Press Group / All photos by Ferrari , Italy
Sep 13, 2003, 21:22 PST

Monza, 13th September – Michael Schumacher recorded the 55th pole of his F1 career, the fifth this season, in front of an ecstatic home crowd to secure the best possible start conditions for tomorrow’s Italian Grand Prix.

You get the feeling "Luca" really wanted this to happen?

The latest driver change saw Marc Gene open the track for the other competitors, as he set off in what should have been Ralf Schumacher’s BMW-Williams. His time of 1.21.834 was good enough to keep him on provisional pole until the sixteenth man out of the pits, Kimi Raikkonen in the McLaren-Mercedes beat the Spaniard’s time. Going out third from last, Michael Schumacher instantly wiped over a half a second off the Finn’s time to go to the top of the page with a 1.20.963.

Michael sits and waits for his "one shot" success

In the second F2003-GA, Rubens Barrichello was the penultimate runner to try his luck and duly posted a time 279 thousandths slower than his team-mate’s, which was good enough to take provisional second. Quickest yesterday, the last man to perform was Juan Pablo Montoya and he was three thousandths quicker at the first sector, 76 thousandths ahead at the end of the second sector, but as he crossed the line he had dropped a bit of time and ended up inserting the blue and white of BMW-Williams in between the two red cars.

Michael flying into Ascari and again setting the mark to beat. No one did!

A delighted Schumacher saluted the equally delighted crowd and President Montezemolo was among the first to congratulate him. It was an emotional moment for the German, who has not started a grand prix from the number one slot since the Austrian event back in May. While Barichello was slightly disappointed to have made a small mistake in Turn 1, the Brazilian is confident that he has a good race car for tomorrow and he might also benefit from starting on the clean side of the track, behind his team-mate.

Rubens put on another excellent performance.

The nature of the high speed circuit at Monza often produces a close finish and with the top six on the grid all within the same second that looks like being the case on Sunday afternoon. Alongside Barrichello on the second row is Kimi Raikkonen for McLaren-Mercedes, which means that all three > championship contenders start from the front two rows.

Ah yes it was a great day for Ferrari and Luca's smile says it all !

Having topped the time sheet for most of the session, Gene did very well to finish fifth, as he only substituted Ralf Schumacher this morning. Alongside him is Jarno Trulli in the Renault. While Gene did well, the other Spaniard was less fortunate: winner in Budapest three weeks ago, Fernando Alonso will start his Renault from the back of the grid, having spun and continued on his flying lap.

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