Just as last year, Ferrari will start the Spanish Grand Prix from the front row of the grid. This year however, Ferrari has come to Spain with a brand new car. The F2003-GA has made its first competitive appearance here in Spain. Ferrars technical partner, Shell brought the Scuderia Ferrari a new fuel for use in Spain too. The fuel powered the new car helping it to the front row of tomorros grid.
The new fuel we have brought here is an evolution of the fuel from Imol, said Mike Copson of Shell Global SolutionsWe have modified that winning fuel slightly and optimised it for the new car. Needless to say we are delighted with how it has performed so far
Working to design fuels to for a specific car is something that we at Shell do for Ferrari continued Copsonbut of course we cat design fuels for each specific road car so we take the lessons we have learnt with Ferrari here today and we will pass them onto our colleagues who design road fuels back in the UK
The support of technical partners is very important said Jean Todt, Managing Director of Ferrars Racing department notably Bridgestone and Shell who have brought a new fuel specially designed for the F2003-G
Aside from Ferrars excellent performance this afternoon, one of the drivers who excelled was local hero, Fernando Alonso. He will start from third place tomorrow; with his Renault team mate Jarno Trulli just behind him.
The Williams team struggled to find speed as they had done throughout Fridas sessions and although Montoya held provisional pole for a while, he was beaten by his team mate Ralf Schumacher who will begin tomorros race down in 7th place.
Another team looking hard for speed was the McLaren duo. Championship-leader Kimi Raikkonen ran wide towards the end of his lap and through a gravel trap. He did well to recover the McLaren but having lost any chance of having a competitive lap, he returned to the pit lane and will begin the Spanish Grand Prix from the pit lane. His teammate, David Coulthard had better lap, although he still begins in unfamiliar 8th place.
Spanish local hero Alonso drove a great lap amongst the thousands of air horns that were screaming around him to put his Renault in provisional pole position for the race. In fact, with only five cars to come, it was the Spaniard who headed the order.
Jenson Button was the first of the quintet to try and break the Spanish joy that had erupted around the track. The young Englishman ran well, but could not dislodge Alonso from pole, he crossed the line 0.4 seconds slower.
Next out was Toyots Christiano da Matta. After an excellent lap yesterday, he was fourth from last to run. Once again however, Alonss pole was safe and da Matts time was only good enough for 10th.
The moment everybody had been waiting for was soon to come though. The first view of day of the F2003-GA being driven in anger. With Rubens Barrichello at the wheel, the car was flying. He steered his car around 0.213 seconds faster than the Renault to take the provisional pole.
Renault clearly would not take this lying down, and Alonss teammate, Jarno Trulli was next out, bent on revenge. Yet try as he may, he could not do it and crossed the line third, behind his teammate.
With one more car to run, the Catalan crowd knew that pole position would belong to a Ferrari F2003-GA, the question was which one. The crowd did not have to wait long to find out. Last running of the day, Michael Schumacher lapped the track in an almost identical time to Rubens until the last sector where he pulled out over a quarter of a second on the Brazilian.
The F2003-GA is having a dream debut so far this weekend, as is the new Shell fuel that powers it. However, the really hard work begins at two clock tomorrow when the drivers have to repeat their impressive feats 65 times in a row.
