Montoya takes pole!

[jonboyG]

Outstanding! What a blinding two laps. Tommorow is going to rock.

HHF 4th in a prost, DC in 9th. Should be fun.

Edit - Minardi and Arrows DNQ.

[EERO]

Boy, That was fun-GO FRENZY!!!!!!

Poor, DC, thinking he had timed a perfect lap and to end up ninth....


Montoya, the alleged "Garbage" driver is almost a full second ahead of Ralf at the ulimate driver's track. A great drive by an exciting driver.




Belgium: Qualifying session
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P. No Driver Team - Engine Tyres Times Ave/Gaps laps
1. 6 MONTOYA Williams BMW M 1'52"072 223.828 Km/h 7
2. 5 R.SCHUMACHER Williams BMW M 1'52"959 + 0'00"887 10
3. 1 M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari B 1'54"685 + 0'02"613 8
4. 22 FRENTZEN Prost Acer M 1'55"233 + 0'03"161 10
5. 2 BARRICHELLO Ferrari B 1'56"116 + 0'04"044 7
6. 10 VILLENEUVE BAR Honda B 1'57"038 + 0'04"966 11
7. 3 HAKKINEN McLaren Mercedes B 1'57"043 + 0'04"971 12
8. 7 FISICHELLA Benetton Renault M 1'57"668 + 0'05"596 7
9. 4 COULTHARD McLaren Mercedes B 1'58"008 + 0'05"936 10
10. 19 DE LA ROSA Jaguar M 1'58"519 + 0'06"447 11
11. 9 PANIS BAR Honda B 1'58"838 + 0'06"766 8
12. 17 RAIKKONEN Sauber Petronas B 1'59"050 + 0'06"978 8
13. 12 ALESI Jordan Honda B 1'59"128 + 0'07"056 10
14. 16 HEIDFELD Sauber Petronas B 1'59"302 + 0'07"230 9
15. 8 BUTTON Benetton Renault M 1'59"587 + 0'07"515 7
16. 11 TRULLI Jordan Honda B 1'59"647 + 0'07"575 10
17. 18 IRVINE Jaguar M 1'59"689 + 0'07"617 9
18. 23 BURTI Prost Acer M 1'59"900 + 0'07"828 7
19. 14 VERSTAPPEN Arrows Asiatech B 2'02"039 + 0'09"967 10
20. 21 ALONSO Minardi European M 2'02"594 + 0'10"522 8
21. 15 BERNOLDI Arrows Asiatech B 2'03"048 + 0'10"976 10
22. 20 MARQUES Minardi European M 2'04"204 + 0'12"132 10


107% time : 1'59"917
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unofficial results - Information: http://www.f1-live.com

[Piquet]

Absolutely FANTASTIC !!!!!!!!

I hope the Montoya Bashers eat their words - the boy is a damn fine racer & he has proved it again!

How many times has he raced an F1 car in the wet & still he had the guts to get on the slicks early & made it happen!!

Only thing is if MS has anything to to with it the stewards may take it away from him for passing Burti (I think) under waved yellows - hope not!

Good on ya Montoya !!!!!!

[Alan Jones]

YES
YES
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[neutral]

Dont get too excited, He done that lap passing waved yellow flags. Id be very suprised if they let him keep that time, considering everone else would have had to slow down

[Nicholas]

Is Heinz-Harald God???
















No... but it's not a bad effort for a mere mortal...


Special mention to Giancarlo Fizzy and JV (I bet he lifted) for good qualifying. And, good God Burti, you nearly DNQ by .017 and your team mate is 4th? Shame on you...

Well that qualifying sounded good and I missed the lot

[f1grandprixshop]

great timing for the BMW to go on dry tyres!


Congratulations!!

[Gt_R]

Excellent...Unpredictable ending, although the start was the usual bore...

Nobody could touch Michael in the wet...but with a constantly drying track...who knows?
Praise MUST be given to JPM for timing his 2 runs to perfection to make full use of a drying track to his advantage. He had beaten Ralf today fair and square...and that must say something of JPM's potential, esp since Ralf is supposed to have a better chassis than JPM.

And yes, despite being a Ferrari fan, i have to say i was displeased with the end of the qualifying. I think they should not have left Michael with only one last qualifying lap, but squeeze 2 in the closing 3mins (like JPM). He made a mistake with a slightly struggling car and that had cost him his pole more than 2s behind JPM. Ferrari should have known better...

But well...what can i say! HHF is 4th!!! Cool stuff. Eddie must be pinching his own nipples now and wonder what he had done. Michelins aint that weak in cool conditions and having Giancarlos in top 10 is another great result! Well done to the 2!

I must say i am happy to see the 2 maclarens down there...not because i dislike them, but to have a top team (pref not my fav) among the mid-pack and a couple of back-packs is going to throw in some fancy race tomorrow... BUT BRING THE DAMN RAIN!!!

Its still too dry for my liking...downpour for tomorrow...pleasE?

[BBKing]

This ws the best qualifying this season. Outstanding Formula Juan is taking his position in the kingdom. Yeah. Well done young man.

Here is hoping for a reliable Williams so little bro can eat his words about saving engines...LOL

[JeremySmith]

Fantastic job Juan Pablo Montoya..Now if we can just have rain for the race I will be happy...BTW has anyone seen Aggy???

[Bononi]

GOOD ONE JPM !!!!

[GanjaGrizz]

Nice Qualif for Jacques Villeneuve and HHF..great job.

[BBKing]

For people who bash Jacques as not good in the wet he was very competive all along the Qualifying. Great stuff. He likes Spa and is not afraid of going fast. You see the difference?...LOL

[facco]

Originally posted by BBKing
This ws the best qualifying this season. Outstanding Formula Juan is taking his position in the kingdom. Yeah. Well done young man.

Here is hoping for a reliable Williams so little bro can eat his words about saving engines...LOL

ditto.

[f1grandprixshop]

is it good driving or is it just the right timing to go on dry tyres?

but i'm sure that's definitely not GARBAGE stuff!

[ttc]

Originally posted by f1grandprixshop
is it good driving or is it just the right timing to go on dry tyres?

but i'm sure that's definitely not GARBAGE stuff!

Timing is definitely the bigger factor today but I'm sure the JPM fans will try to convince you otherwise...

[Jeanburrasca81]

Originally posted by nicholaswhite
Is Heinz-Harald God???
No... but it's not a bad effort for a mere mortal...


Special mention to Giancarlo Fizzy and JV (I bet he lifted) for good qualifying. And, good God Burti, you nearly DNQ by .017 and your team mate is 4th? Shame on you...

Well that qualifying sounded good and I missed the lot

Well, my respect to HHF, but he was the last one passing before the cequered flag came out and was on his way with the best track conditions of all drivers. He had a perfect lap, but others did similar things. We can't blame Burti for being that many seconds behind. In fact he wasnt on his way with drys and had no chance to improve. The same happened to Alesi 13th and Trulli 16th. With drys and a timing like Frentzen I bet that we had them both in the second row. But it happened in another way as it usually doesn when weather conditions dominate a qualifying and if the weather is similar tomorrow, and it should be, we can get excited already now...hehe

Best regards,

Julian

[Ralf's Girl]

Originally posted by Gt_R
He had beaten Ralf today fair and square...and that must say something of JPM's potential, esp since Ralf is supposed to have a better chassis than JPM.

Wrong-o. It's a modified chassis...modified doesn't necessarily mean better.

Star of qualifying has to be Frentzen! Eddie Jordan must be feeling like a prize prat right now - the guy he sacked in 4th in a Prost (!) and his drivers in 13th and 16th...!

[facco]

Originally posted by Gt_R
Excellent...Unpredictable ending, although the start was the usual bore...

He had beaten Ralf today fair and square...and that must say something of JPM's potential, esp since Ralf is supposed to have a better chassis than JPM.

JPM sure did beat RS, and his improved chassis, in the spare car (bet it was set for RS)! Maybe Ralf was saving his engine, or new chassis for tomorrow. (LOL)
Statistics... MS had never made a pole at SPA.

Originally posted by Gt_R

But well...what can i say! HHF is 4th!!! Cool stuff.

Yup, I agree, HHF at 4th just turns my mind into hard job: Making histories about how Eddie Jordan is realizing this thing...

[Sonatrap]

Nice one Juancho.

He´s certainly paid his dues to misfortune this season so lets hope tomorrow he gets the maiden victory he deserves, and where better than at SPA!!

BTW isn´t it amusing listening to Ralph fans etc serve up their punctual and predictable detractions from JPM´S acheivements...just how creative and resourceful will they have to get over the next season to keep this up?

[I Ate Yoko Ono]

Just in case there are stil any doubters about JPM, I didn't notice either Rsch or Msch slowing down for the waved yellows either.

Well done JPM, your unparalleled natural ability has shone through today.

[Dino IV]

Juan, Ralf and Heinz indicate that the Michelin 'slicks' and a dry-set-up was the way to go. I guess way too many people stuck to their wet or medium (wet\dry) set-up and just changed to 'slicks' in the closing stages. Still a very impressive drive by Juan to outpace Ralf that much. You could see they were revising the set-up heavily throughout the session on the slo-mo shots at Eau Rouge were his first runs he was bottoming out hard and long with soft (rain) suspension and on his last run he hardly touched ground with much stiffer (dry) supension. Also noteworthy was the flexing of the tire sidewalls of the Michelins on the Williams which points to a soft tyres with soft sidewall construction, as talked about a bit by Bridgestone's Technical Chief Hisao Suganuma earlier this week. They can be very fast but need good faith and ballsy determination from the driver as they tend to be less predicting in their behaviour.

TGF's wet set-up was awesome with no imperfections in handling I could spot, but his dry-setup on the second car which he used in the closing stages must have been at bit too much in handling as the gap of 2,6s is fairly big. Rubens performance with wet\medium set-up and intermediate tires right till the end was noteworthy as every other time around him was set on 'slicks' and the gap to the next 'intermediate' qualifier which was DC, was 1,9 s. Intermediate-pole-position for Rubens. Very well done.

Too bad for Alesi and Trulli as I had high hopes for them on this track. The Jordan's balance was totally nowhere as it seemed and handling was extremely difficult, snap-oversteering in the fast corners, dodgy-understeering in the slow corners and totally terrible over the curbs. On top of that they misjudged the closing stages and were on intermediates when they should have been on 'slicks' which could have taken them in the top 10. They must be very frustrated.

Some teams were also struggling with their TC settings as some were still spin-happy (Sauber, Jordan) and others seemed a bit too conservative (Jag, Mac). As were some struggling with their strategies with changing to intermediates and dry tires throughout the session. Most drivers didn't even get a run on dry tires and if they did recieve those through a race-like pitstop their set-up wasn't changed. It always makes you think that F1 could be so much more professional and satisfying to the drivers if teams would up their game in these areas. Sometimes it's more important to have your strategy and pit-time right than to have the best engine around. That will be painfully clear (again) tomorrow if the conditions are as fast changing as they were today. There's a lot of time to be gained by most of the grid in those areas that would instantly raise their level of competition. Maybe Ross Brawn could be lured out of the Scuderia to start a consulting business on this and start giving some seminars at every team.

All in all a very nice qualifying session!

[Ralf's Girl]

Originally posted by Sonatrap
BTW isn´t it amusing listening to Ralph fans etc serve up their punctual and predictable detractions from JPM´S acheivements...just how creative and resourceful will they have to get over the next season to keep this up?

Pardon?

MONTOYA'S LAP WAS BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE'S, INCLUDING RALF'S

There. Did we all read that?

[economy_waffle]

NOOOOOOOOOOO I MISSED THE ****ING THING AND MUM DIDNT RECORD IT



i cant beleive it, the best QS and i ****ing miss it...im not amused DAMN BOOTS THE CHEMIIIISSSTTTT!!!!!!

[Bononi]

Yes Dino. Jordans went very bad today, I wonder how they'll perform tomorrow, since I was hoping a nice drive for Alesi...