Saturday March 30th, 2002

By Will Gray

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya claimed his fourth career pole for Williams-BMW on Saturday as World Champion Michael Schumacher failed to perform well enough to topple his rival in the new Ferrari during qualifying for Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix.

Montoya, who is second in the Championship two points behind German Schumacher, fended off a late challenge from his Ferrari rival as the Michelin-shod Williams team benefited from track temperatures of 45 degrees in the searing heat at Interlagos.

Schumacher, using Bridgestone tyres on his Ferrari, led the chase of the dominant Williams cars and a late run saw him claim second to split the Grove-based team's drivers and drop his brother Ralf down to third.

David Coulthard, who is yet to finish a race this year, claimed fourth in the McLaren-Mercedes but could not match the pace of the lead three and finished almost half a second down on his rivals but one place ahead of his fifth-placed Finnish teammate Kimi Raikkonen.

Italian Jarno Trulli and Briton Jenson Button made it a good day for Renault as they benefited from the performance advantage of the Michelin rubber to claim sixth and seventh fastest times respectively.

Rubens Barrichello, hoping for glory in his home race, finished with the eighth fastest time, but is to have that stripped after passing a red light in the final practice session earlier in the day.

However, the penalty will not drop him a place as he set a time fast enough to beat Nick Heidfeld, from Germany, who recovered from a poor start to the session when the team was forced to change the engine in his Sauber car before qualifying to end up ninth and Finn Mika Salo put in an impressive performance for Toyota with tenth place.

Pos  Driver        Team                    Times                 
 1.  Montoya       Williams BMW       (M)  1:13.114  212.167 km/h
 2.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari            (B)  1:13.241    +    0.127
 3.  R.Schumacher  Williams BMW       (M)  1:13.328    +    0.214
 4.  Coulthard     McLaren Mercedes   (M)  1:13.565    +    0.451
 5.  Raikkonen     McLaren Mercedes   (M)  1:13.595    +    0.481
 6.  Trulli        Renault            (M)  1:13.611    +    0.497
 7.  Button        Renault            (M)  1:13.665    +    0.551
 8.  Barrichello   Ferrari            (B)  1:13.935    +    0.821
 9.  Heidfeld      Sauber Petronas    (B)  1:14.233    +    1.119
10.  Salo          Toyota             (M)  1:14.443    +    1.329
11.  de la Rosa    Jaguar Cosworth    (M)  1:14.464    +    1.350
12.  Massa         Sauber Petronas    (B)  1:14.533    +    1.419
13.  Irvine        Jaguar Cosworth    (M)  1:14.537    +    1.423
14.  Fisichella    Jordan Honda       (B)  1:14.748    +    1.634
15.  Villeneuve    BAR Honda          (B)  1:14.760    +    1.646
16.  McNish        Toyota             (M)  1:14.990    +    1.876
17.  Panis         BAR Honda          (B)  1:14.996    +    1.882
18.  Frentzen      Arrows Cosworth    (B)  1:15.112    +    1.998
19.  Sato          Jordan Honda       (B)  1:15.296    +    2.175
20.  Webber        Minardi Asiatech   (M)  1:15.340    +    2.226
21.  Bernoldi      Arrows Cosworth    (B)  1:15.355    +    2.241
22.  Yoong         Minardi Asiatech   (M)  1:16.728    +    3.614

All Timing Unofficial

Published at 17:03:05 GMT