Malaysian GP: Ferrari Saturday qualifying notes

Second pole position of the season for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, the fifth from a total of six Malaysian Grands Prix, all obtained by Michael Schumacher. It was the 168th pole in the team's history and the 57th of Michael's career.

Jean Todt:

"Having two Bridgestone-shod Ferraris in first and third places on the grid is certainly an encouraging sign for tomorrow's race. However, at the risk of repeating myself, without knowing what fuel loads and strategies our rivals have opted for, we cannot draw any definite conclusion as to the pecking order amongst the teams. In any case, today's performance, in very high temperatures, shows that the work we have done this winter in conjunction with Bridgestone is bearing fruit. The start, reliability, strategy, the fitness of the drivers: these will be the key elements in a very long and difficult race."

Michael Schumacher:

"I have to say it was a mind-blowing lap, really perfect and spot-on. We were not quite there on Friday, but the whole team worked very well to get the programme back on track. The main reason I picked up so much time between the two runs was that the track improved a lot with much more grip. I tried to be careful in the final sector where it is easy to make mistakes in the last two corners. Tomorrow, the car will not be affected much by the heat, but with the high temperatures the tyre grip goes down. Inside the cockpit, it will be very hard work for us tomorrow and even though we expect that here, it seems to get harder every year as the cars get quicker.'

Rubens Barrichello:

"I am not worried about the time difference to Michael. Firstly, I made a small mistake in the last corner and then I made some different choices to my team-mate. So, although I was not entirely happy with my car in terms of qualifying, I have concentrated very hard on the race and am very happy with my set-up for tomorrow, when I hope everything will come my way. In this heat, it will be a very difficult race."

Ross Brawn:

"Michael did a perfect lap. Our engineers did a fine job in defining the set-up, to make the car very well balanced. Given how hard we worked after yesterday's practice in terms of analysing the data and deciding which way to go, I think this was a well deserved result. I did not expect to have such a big advantage over our competitors, keeping in mind that we don't know what fuel loads they are running. So it is difficult to predict what will happen in the race. Tyres will be crucial."

Michael Schumacher
chassis 234
Qualifying 1: 4th 1.33.865
Qualifying 2: 1st 1.33.074

Rubens Barrichello
chassi 236
Qualifying 1: 6th 1.34.132
Qualifying 2: 3rd 1.33.756

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