German GP: Bridgestone Saturday qualifying notes

Schumacher starts home GP from fifth

Bridgestone shod Michael Schumacher will start the 67 lap German Grand Prix, his home race, from fifth place on the grid, row three, tomorrow afternoon. Cheered on by his fans, the reigning World Champion qualified with a time of 1 min 15.006 seconds. His teammate Rubens Barrichello will start from the eighth row.

Meanwhile, the competition between fellow Bridgestone runners, Jordan and Minardi, continues. Christijan Albers in particular has been running well and he will start the race alongside Barrichello on row eight. India's Narain Karthikeyan unfortunately made a mistake on his run and did not therefore complete his lap which will see him starting from the final row tomorrow.

Hisao Suganuma, Technical Manager of Bridgestone Motorsport:

"The three teams spent the morning sessions preparing their cars for qualifying and the race tomorrow. Track conditions were reasonable, enabling the teams to try various set-ups and improve their cars for the remainder of the weekend."

"In qualifying, Michael produced a reasonable result giving him a good chance of being able to jump further forward at the start of the race and although Rubens is further down the grid, we expect he too will be able to move up through field as the race progresses."

"Minardi and Jordan had a reasonable day today too with Christijan Albers impressing. The only exception was Karthikeyan who unfortunately made a mistake and did not complete his qualifying lap."

Ross Brawn, Technical Director of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro:

"We're in the middle of a very strong period of trying to catch up with the front runners. We have a lot of new tyre technology with both drivers on different tyres today and it looks, certainly this afternoon, as if Michael's tyre was much stronger than the other tyre in Rubens' case. But it will be interesting to see how the race develops and perhaps Rubens will start to make progress tomorrow if the tyres are more consistent."

"We're pleased with Michael's performance as I think we got as much as he could from the whole package, despite not being quick enough. I think he did a good job and the cars were sufficiently well balanced. We'll have to see what we can pull out tomorrow. The weather forecast for tomorrow is mixed which may give us the opportunity to do better than our grid positions are suggesting."

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