UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > Qual: Kimi the class of Monte-Carlo

Finn dominates qualifying

The expected fight for Monaco’s provisional pole position never emerged on Saturday afternoon as Kimi Raikkonen outclassed his Formula One rivals.

After impressive practice form Renault were seen as the team to beat but the squad’s lead driver, Fernando Alonso, wasn’t even close to Kimi’s time.

The pair were the final two drivers on track and when Alonso went half a second quicker than Williams’ Mark Webber with a 1:14.125 he looked unbeatable.

But Raikkonen had other ideas and recorded an astonishing time of 1:13.644 to break the circuit lap record and head home the Spaniard by over four tenths.

Webber finished third quickest with a solid 1:14.584, ahead of Renault’s practice pacesetter Giancarlo Fisichella with a 1:14.783.

McLaren’s Juan Pablo Montoya (1:14.858), who was quickest in both Friday’s first and Saturday’s first practice sessions, finished fifth, Williams’ Nick Heidfeld (1:15.128) sixth.

2004 race winner Jarno Trulli couldn’t get amongst the top men and was forced to settle for the seventh with a time of 1:15.189.

But the Italian’s attempt was seriously compromised by his Toyota team-mate Ralf Schumacher, whose accident caused the red flags to be waved.

The German, who ran fourth last, clipped the inside of the barrier at Tabac breaking his left suspension before slamming into the opposing wall.

The impact destroyed the right hand side of the Toyota TF105 and left the team with a lot of work to do ahead of Sunday.

It took the marshals more than ten minutes to clear up the mess and once the session resumed the grip levels had obviously decreased.

While the conditions had no adverse reactions on Raikkonen or Alonso, Trulli struggled and couldn’t record the time he had expected.

A little more satisfied were Red Bull Racing’s David Coulthard (1:15.329) and Sauber’s Jacques Villeneuve (1:15.921), in eighth and ninth respectively.

Coulthard, in his Star Wars liveried RB1, finished a whole one and half seconds quicker than his team-mate Tonio Liuzzi (1:16.817 / P13).

While Villeneuve didn’t demolish his team-mate’s time in the same fashion as Coulthard, he did provisionally qualify ahead of the two Ferraris.

The French-Canadian, who has been highly criticised this year, put his Ferrari-powered Sauber ahead of both Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher after a nail-biting lap.

Rounding out the top ten was Barrichello who struggled to get heat into his Bridgestone rubber and could only manage to record a time of disappointing 1:16.142.

QUALIFYING SHORTS

* Mixed result. Kimi Raikkonen, on the way to recording a new circuit record, set the fastest split times in all three sectors on his Saturday afternoon qualifying run.

But surprisingly it was Fernando Alonso who set the fastest time in all three speed traps, leaving the Renault team scratching their heads.

* Double disappointment. Jordan had double disappoint on Saturday afternoon when they were provisionally out-qualified by both Minarids.

Patrick Friesacher finished a whopping eight tenths of a second up on Jordan’s Tiago Monteiro while Chrisitjan Albers just edged the Portuguese ace out by two tenths.

The second Jordan of Narain Karthikeyan finished a further tenth back.

Written: Sat, 21 May 2005 12:08:14