Formula 1
Brazilian GP: Bridgestone Saturday qualifying notes
Bittersweet qualifying in Brazil for Bridgestone Storming to a sensational third career pole in his Bridgestone shod Scuderia Ferrari, Felipe Massa sent his home crowd wild this afternoon in the final qualifying session of the 2006 season. The ...
Published: Oct 22, 2006, 4:45 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Bittersweet qualifying in Brazil for Bridgestone
Storming to a sensational third career pole in his Bridgestone shod Scuderia Ferrari, Felipe Massa sent his home crowd wild this afternoon in the final qualifying session of the 2006 season. The young Brazilian was over half a second faster than second placed Kimi Raikkonen with Panasonic Toyota Racing's Jarno Trulli making it two Bridgestone runners in the top three.
However, in yet another cruel blow, Michael Schumacher was robbed of his opportunity to steal the show. A car problem left him with no other alternative than to return to the pits at the start of the final phase of qualifying. Schumacher had earlier set the fastest time of the day with a 1m10.313, indicating that he clearly will be on the pace in tomorrow's 71-lap race.
Brother Ralf was seventh fastest today in final qualifying while Mark Webber was 11th fastest on his final weekend for the WilliamsF1 team. His teammate Nico Rosberg was 13th. Spyker MF1 Racing's Christijan Albers was 18th with Super Aguri F1's Takuma Sato and Sakon Yamamoto close behind. Tiago Monteiro was 22nd after spinning off at the beginning of the opening qualifying session.
Hisao Suganuma, Technical Manager - Bridgestone Motorsport:
"We clearly saw the strong performance of the Bridgestone tyres in this afternoon's qualifying session with Felipe [Massa] taking his second consecutive pole and Jarno [Trulli] finishing in third. Congratulations to them on a job well done. Obviously we are disappointed for Michael [Schumacher] as we could well have seen a Ferrari 1-2 today. Nevertheless, he is more than capable of fighting to the front tomorrow so he should not be ruled out."
"Ralf Schumacher will also be strong tomorrow, having qualified seventh fastest. It was a very close qualifying today but we are very pleased so far with the performance of the Bridgestone tyres and we expect they will be even better in race conditions tomorrow."
Bridgestone Team News
Ross Brawn, Technical Director - Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro:
"A great performance by Felipe who did even better than we had anticipated. The car and Bridgestone tyres are very good here but really he saved the day because of the problem we had with Michael's car. It is particularly frustrating as the car and tyres are so good this weekend but, to me, even from his position on the grid, the way Michael is fired up means that there are still possibilities for tomorrow's race. We have the consistency in the tyres and I believe tomorrow's forecast for warm weather will move things in our favour as well."
Pascal Vasselon, General Manager Chassis - Panasonic Toyota Racing:
"Bridgestone have provided us with a tyre choice a little bit outside the usual window this weekend and we went for it. It seems to provide at the same time a good qualifying performance and, according to what we have seen yesterday and this morning, a very good race pace. Overall we are very, very pleased with this tyre choice this weekend."
-credit: bridgestone
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Brazilian GP: BMW Sauber Saturday qualifying notes
Next article Brazil important race for Monteiro
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Felipe Massa
On this day: Michael Schumacher wins… and stuns tifosi with F1 retirement
Formula 1
Formula 1
Italian GP
On this day: Michael Schumacher wins… and stuns tifosi with F1 retirement
Defendant ordered to pay £250,000 legal fees in Felipe Massa F1 title case
Formula 1
Formula 1
Defendant ordered to pay £250,000 legal fees in Felipe Massa F1 title case
Felipe Massa’s F1 2008 lawsuit will proceed to trial
Formula 1
Formula 1
Las Vegas GP
Felipe Massa’s F1 2008 lawsuit will proceed to trial
More from
Ferrari
Robert Kubica announces exit from AF Corse’s privateer Hypercar in WEC
WEC
WEC
Monza
13 h
Robert Kubica announces exit from AF Corse’s privateer Hypercar in WEC
Charles Leclerc penalised for Liam Lawson clash; Kimi Antonelli and Oliver Bearman also punished after F1 Brazilian GP
Formula 1
Formula 1
Sao Paulo GP
13 h
Charles Leclerc penalised for Liam Lawson clash; Kimi Antonelli and Oliver Bearman also punished after F1 Brazilian GP
Latest news
Who slept best last night: Toto Wolff
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Sao Paulo GP
12 min
Who slept best last night: Toto Wolff
Winners and losers from MotoGP’s contentious Qatar Grand Prix
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Qatar GP
35 min
Winners and losers from MotoGP’s contentious Qatar Grand Prix
Who slept worst last night: Fernando Alonso
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Sao Paulo GP
1 h
Who slept worst last night: Fernando Alonso
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe