Australian GP: Bridgestone Saturday qualifying notes

Front Row Lock Out for Bridgestone & Ferrari!

Bridgestone Motorsport has sent its message to the Formula One paddock loud and clear: Bridgestone means business in 2004! After months of intense winter testing not only did Bridgestone-shod Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro's Michael Schumacher break the Melbourne circuit track record yesterday topping both practice session time sheets, but he remained the fastest man on track in this morning's two practice sessions and went on to blow his rivals away in final qualifying with a pole setting time of 1m24.408s . Hot on his heels was Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello who joins him on the front row of the grid making it an all Bridgestone front row. Sauber Petronas' Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella also had a strong showing in qualifying and they will start their first race of the 2004 season ready to pounce from mid grid.

Bridgestone Results
1st M Schumacher 1:24.408
2nd R Barrichello 1:24.482
11th F Massa 1:27.065
14th G Fisichella 1:27.845
15th N Heidfeld 1:18.178
16th G Pantano 1:30.140
17th Z Baumgartner 1:30.681
20th G Bruni DNS.

Hisao Suganuma , Technical Manager of Bridgestone Motorsport
"It's great to see the two Bridgestone shod Ferraris on the front row. Pole position is always an advantage for the race. It is now important that we go back and analyse all the results from this morning's practice sessions and make our final checks before the race. So far the tyre data has shown that we will be competitive on Sunday afternoon so we are confident for tomorrow's race. I also think that the other Bridgestone cars have a good chance of a competitive race and some good results. I'm very pleased that not only do we seem to have excellent consistency from the Bridgestone tyres but also top speed potential which will no doubt be of benefit to all our teams tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it!"

The Teams

Ross Brawn , Technical Director of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro
"Very pleased! From what we've seen so far I think we should be reasonably optimistic about the race tomorrow. The Bridgestone tyres have been very very good this weekend and very consistent. We don't know what race conditions will be like tomorrow but we've certainly seen some encouraging signs for the race. We've got new constructions and compounds here for Melbourne and so far it's a real credit to all the work everyone at Bridgestone and Ferrari has done."

<pre> Temperatures Ambient Track Weather AM Practices 20-24C 22-31C Overcast sunny PM Qual. 1 24-23-24C 36-35-36C Sunny

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