Ferrari's Michael Schumacher has snatched pole position from team-mate Rubens Barrichello for tomorrow's Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. Barrichello had been fastest for most of the qualifying session but world champion and current championship leader Schumacher clocked a last lap of one minute 16.364 seconds. It was enough to secure pole by 0.326 seconds and beat the track record of 1:16.525 set by Jacques Villeneuve in 1997 qualifying.
Schumacher's pole is his 46th of his Formula One career and his third of the current campaign. His younger brother Ralf was third fastest for Williams with team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya in fourth place. Finland's Kimi Raikkonen will start in fifth place on the grid ahead of Renault's Jenson Button and fellow McLaren driver David Coulthard.
Afterwards, Michael Schumacher said modifications to his car made all the difference: "We had to modify the car and went a bit closer to what Rubens was doing. I got the run-in well having made a couple of mistakes in the first two runs. You just have to compare he is faster and you also have to push a bit harder which is what I did."
The Jordans of Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato finished in 12th and 19th respectively, with Eddie Irvine in fifteenth place for Jaguar.
Filed by Tom Grealis
