Saturday July 6th, 2002

By Will Gray

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya continued his run of pole positions by claiming the top spot for Sunday's British Grand Prix after halting Ferrari's domination at Silverstone in Saturday's qualifying session.

Montoya claimed his fourth pole in a row with a last-minute dash which knocked Brazilian Rubens Barrichello off the top spot as his World Champion rival Michael Schumacher ended up on the second row of the grid for the fourth time in five races.

Williams driver Montoya's time of 1:18.998 was one and a half seconds faster than last year's pole position time and saw him finish just more than three hundredths of a second faster than the leading Ferrari.

Schumacher was a further one hundredth of a second slower in a top three which was covered, astonishingly, by just 0.044 seconds, with fourth-placed Ralf Schumacher just less than three tenths of a second slower.

Finn Kimi Raikkonen finished just ahead of his British McLaren-Mercedes teammate David Coulthard in fifth and sixth, while Renault were next with Italian Jarno Trulli, in seventh.

But he was their only top-ten representative because his British teammate Jenson Button hit trouble when the engine in his Renault blew half-way through the session. He was forced to run back to the pits to claim the spare with half the session remaining, and only managed 12th position.

Mika Salo, of Toyota, claimed eighth ahead of Canadian Jacques Villeneuve, of British American Racing Honda, who was ninth ahead the Sauber of Nick Heidfeld, who rounded out the top ten.

Schumacher had claimed the top time half way though the session with Williams-BMW rival Montoya in second and the McLaren pair of Coulthard and Raikkonen in third and fourth, but it would not remain that way for long.

Ralf Schumacher soon bumped his Williams-BMW teammate down to second and, a few minutes later, Ferrari returned to their usual one-two position when Barrichello cruised into second, 0.133 seconds behind his pace-setting teammate.

With little more than ten minutes to go, Barrichello attempted to bump his teammate off provisional pole and, after setting a faster time in the early sector, he kept the momentum going to pip Schumacher by just one hundredth of a second

But Montoya set the fastest time of the session in a last-minute dash for pole as Schumacher failed to improve on his time as the chequered flag fell to end the qualifying hour.

Jordan's hopes were dented when Italian Giancarlo Fisichella parked his EJ12 on the edge of the track and he finished down in 17th place with Takuma Sato ahead of him in 14th place.

Arrows, let into the race after a last-gasp deal was brokered with engine suppliers Cosworth, finished in 16th place, with Heinz-Harald Frentzen, and 18th, with Enrique Bernoldi.

Jaguar had a disastrous debut of their newly-modified R3 car, with Ulsterman Eddie Irvine managing only 19th fastest time and Spanish teammate Pedro de la Rosa finishing bottom of the pile after failing to get on track until the last minutes of the session.

But there will be only 21 cars in the race on Sunday as Malaysian Alex Yoong failed to get within the 107 percent of pole position in his Minardi to lend another blow to the struggling team.

Pos  Driver        Team                   Time                    Laps
 1.  Montoya       Williams BMW      (M)  1:18.998  234.279 km/h   9  
 2.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:19.032    +    0.034  11  
 3.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:19.042    +    0.044   9  
 4.  R.Schumacher  Williams BMW      (M)  1:19.329    +    0.331   9  
 5.  Raikkonen     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:20.133    +    1.135  10  
 6.  Coulthard     McLaren Mercedes  (M)  1:20.315    +    1.317  11  
 7.  Trulli        Renault           (M)  1:20.516    +    1.518  10  
 8.  Salo          Toyota            (M)  1:20.995    +    1.997  10  
 9.  Villeneuve    BAR Honda         (B)  1:21.130    +    2.132  10  
10.  Heidfeld      Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:21.187    +    2.189  12  
11.  Massa         Sauber Petronas   (B)  1:21.191    +    2.193   9  
12.  Button        Renault           (M)  1:21.247    +    2.249   8  
13.  Panis         BAR Honda         (B)  1:21.274    +    2.276   9  
14.  Sato          Jordan Honda      (B)  1:21.337    +    2.339   8  
15.  McNish        Toyota            (M)  1:21.382    +    2.384   9  
16.  Frentzen      Arrows Cosworth   (B)  1:21.416    +    2.418  12  
17.  Fisichella    Jordan Honda      (B)  1:21.636    +    2.638   9  
18.  Bernoldi      Arrows Cosworth   (B)  1:21.780    +    2.782  12  
19.  Irvine        Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:21.851    +    2.853   8  
20.  Webber        Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:22.281    +    3.283  11  
21.  de la Rosa    Jaguar Cosworth   (M)  1:23.422    +    4.424   6  
22.  Yoong         Minardi Asiatech  (M)  1:24.785    +    5.787  12 * 

* Outside 107%

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 13:04:02 GMT