Brazilian GP Ferrari Saturday notes

Seventh consecutive pole for Ferrari and for Michael Schumacher, who now total 140 and 35 poles respectively. This is Ferrari’s second pole position in Brazil, the first one dating back to 1985, courtesy of Michele Alboreto.

Michael Schumacher
“It will be great to see my little brother next to me on the grid tomorrow and maybe we better get used to it! I think once again my parents’ heartbeat will be very high at the start and the first corner. We know one another well enough and so we will not crash. It will be a hard but fair fight as we both have separate interests. Although I am happy for my brother, I am disappointed for the team that Rubens had problems which prevented him joining me at the front. As for my session, we were confident before the start, bearing in mind that unlike most of the others, we did not fit new tyres this morning. But we did know it would be tighter than in Malaysia. I aborted the second of my four runs, because it was too slow after I made a mistake and ran wide in Turn 4. As for the race, I can be confident because the car is competitive, probably the best in the field. So we have the opportunity to win. But having the opportunity and actually doing it is a different matter.”

Rubens Barrichello
“I am very disappointed with the outcome of this qualifying session. In this morning’s free practice I only ran one set of tyres. In the afternoon, on new tyres, I was never able to find the ideal balance on the car, which was continually understeering. I am not at all happy, as I felt I could have got a much better result. Sixth place was certainly not what I was expecting here in front of my home crowd.” Jean Todt
“As we predicted, this qualifying session was very tight, showing up the relative merits of the cars and tyres. Michael did a great job to take his and the team’s seventh consecutive pole. Rubens was in difficulty with persistent understeer, which prevented him from securing a better position. It’s a shame as there is only one tenth of a second separating second and sixth places, which shows just how closely matched are the cars. It is interesting to note that this year’s pole time is only just under three tenths of a second quicker than last year’s. Looking at the outcome of qualifying in the first two races, one could have expected a bigger difference. I think we can expect a very open race tomorrow, which will be particularly hard on the cars, because of the high temperatures.”