Australian GP Ferrari qualifying notes

Two Ferraris on the front row after qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix. This first pole of the season is the fifth consecutive one for both the Scuderia (138 in total) and Michael Schumacher (33.)

Jean Todt: "This result is very encouraging. In yesterday's free practice we saw that the potential was there and today it was confirmed with an all-red front row. Now we must think about tomorrow's race, which will be a completely different ball game. Reliability will be the most important factor and at the moment I do not feel I can say this is one of our strong points. Michael used the spare car, simply to check it out, as it had never run before today on any track."

Michael Schumacher: "I am very happy. Last year's car was good and this one is even better and that is a great achievement for Ferrari. My mechanics did a great job, working through the night to give me a fast car today. The reason I took the spare car right at the end was that I knew Mika (Hakkinen) had no more laps to improve, so we decided to give the spare a run to check it was okay for tomorrow. I am surprised that we are around four seconds faster than last year. I expected it to be two or three seconds. The reason for the improvement is that Bridgestone has given us a superb tyre and the team has made a great car. This year you can feel there is more G-force when you drive, but in one way the car is easier to drive as it handles better than last year. I am not worried about the couple of technical problems we have had in practice, because we have done so many kilometres in testing without coming across them before."

Rubens Barrichello: "Yesterday I was really happy with the car and confident for today. So, after losing track time this morning, it meant I knew the car but not the condition of the circuit. I am happy with the result and the team did a fantastic job. I aborted my third run as I had a problem selecting a gear. Then I was called in to the weigh-in again. This meant I had no more time. So, if I had been able to do more laps in the morning and if I had time to make one more change to the set-up maybe I could have gone quicker. But I am happy with everything as the car is going very well and the F2001 suits me better than last year's. Even if I did not do so many laps, I am confident that we can have a good car for the race as we have done so much testing on full tanks at Mugello."

-Ferrari