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Aussie GP qualifying: Schuey heads Ferrari one-two

Ferrari began the defence of its brace of world titles in the best possible way - with a one-two on the Melbourne grid.

World champion Michael Schumacher put in a stunning 1m26.982s lap to claim his first ever Aussie pole, with Rubens Barrichello almost four tenths behind. As a bonus, McLaren struggled to get anywhere near the pace-setting red cars, despite getting extra head-scratching time when Luciano Burti brought the red flags out after crashing heavily in his Jaguar.

The big guns waited 25 minutes before venturing out onto the track. In the early skirmishes, Barrichello and McLaren's Mika Hakkinen both took a turn at holding the pole, but a surprise tactic by Schumacher suddenly moved the goalposts. The German realised that his Bridgestones were more effctive with a heat cycle already in them and although his first flyer nicked the pole, a cool-down lap followed by another flyer left the benchmark at 1m27.516s.

With track temperatures up from the morning, the McLarens were suddenly suffering handling problems, with both cars suffering a grassy moment as they rode on the knife-edge to match the Ferrari's pace. That left Barrichello as the only real challenger to his team mate, and he obliged with a 1m27.515s lap, just one thousandth faster than Schumacher.

But as red rags to bulls go, that was the spur the champion needed to get out there and completely redefine what a quick lap means at Melbourne. The Ferrari flashed past the timing beams and stopped the clocks at 1m26.892s, a staggering 3.664s quicker than last year's pole time, thanks to the Bridgestone versus Michelin tyre war (with Bridgestone definitely winning the first battle).

Just a couple of minutes later, with McLaren ready to give it a last shot, the reds flew as Burti's Jaguar spewed wheels and debris over Turn Five (ironically, the Lauda Bend) and systematically destroyed its left flank against the wall. The Brazilian, uninjured in the crash, reported stoney-faced that he felt something break in the rear of the car. Replays confirmed his diagnosis with the car squatting down at the rear before spinning, almost rolling and then hitting the wall at around 130mph.

After a 10-minute sweep-up and crane away, the session resumed for its final 12 minutes with Coulthard needing to do some drastic improving to get himself out of the midfield mire down in 11th. First Hakkinen leapt to second, then DC pulled one out of the bag for fifth, but it wasn't overly impressive stuff and with just a minute to go, Barrichello inflicted another dose of reality on the Woking squad with a lap that was neat rather than exciting, but still good enough for second.

"It was an untidy qualifying for us," admitted McLaren's technical director Adrian Newey. "Mika was on a quick lap but it was red-flagged. It was an untidy session for David too, who had a couple of problems."

Schumacher had toyed with another run, but a minor electrical niggle decided it for him. As it was, just 24 hours after a double barrel roll had badly-damaged his race car, Schumacher was the class of the field.

"I'm certainly very happy," he said afterwards. "It's a great achievement for Ferrari. I've got to say thanks to all of my mechanics who did a great job to repair the car after my little problem yesterday.

"We know now the car is fast - thats the important part - the next bit is to show it is reliable too and we can show that in the race tomorrow."

After losing an engine in Saturday's first untimed session and not running at all in the second, Barrichello seemed pleased to make it an all-Ferrari front row.

"After the problems I had this morning, it didn't really help," he smiled, "but I'm happy to be on the front row considering my lack of time on the track. The team did a fantastic job to be so strong and let us fight for the pole."

Hakkinen had every right to be a little despondent, but looked on the bright side: there's got to be a lot left in the car still...

"It was definitely not perfect, I'm sure it could have been better," he understated. "I'm reasonably pleased to be third and I'm confident we'll have a quick car for the race tomorrow."

Heinz-Harald Frentzen won the Honda battle with fourth in his Jordan, ahead of the best of the Michelin runners: Ralf Schumacher's Williams-BMW in fifth. Schumacher's late flier put Coulthard down to sixth, ahead of Jarno Trulli in the second Jordan and the two Honda-powered BARs of Jacques Villeneuve and Olivier Panis.

Nick Heidfeld completed the top 10, just nicking it from Williams-BMW rookie Juan Pablo Montoya and Burti's Jaguar team mate Eddie Irvine, who'd promised a lot more.

Jenson Button finally had something to smile about (relatively...) by taking the 16th slot, one ahead of team mate Giancarlo Fisichella.

But Minardi's dream weekend began to leave the rails with Tarso Marques failing to get within the 107 per cent of pole needed to qualify. Nevertheless, with the Stewards allowing the Brazilian to start (see separate story) and a brilliant 19th for Fernando Alonso meant there was still plenty of good news for the Anglo-Italo-Australian minnows.

For full qualifying times, click here.


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