Schu claims Senna's pole record
Saturday, 22, April, 2006, 14:59
Michael Schumacher claimed one of the very few Formula 1 records that still eluded him at Imola on Saturday, taking his 66th career pole position to eclipse the mark set by the late, great Ayrton Senna.
Schumacher has been in peerless form all weekend, revelling in the improved performance of the modified Ferrari 248 F1, and signalled his intent when he topped the second knock-out session by a massive 0.7s.
His final advantage was ‘only’ 0.2s, as Jenson Button found the pace he has been lacking so far this weekend to haul his Honda onto the front row.
The Briton has now qualified in the top three for each of the first four races and boasts the best average grid position of anyone in the field.
Team-mate Rubens Barrichello has had a miserable time of it so far in 2006, even prompting speculation that his position in the team might be in jeopardy if he didn’t raise his game over the next few races.
But the Brazilian showed his true class on Saturday afternoon, overcoming his unease with the RA106 chassis to claim an excellent third on the grid.
Felipe Massa completed a Ferrari-Honda sandwich by qualifying fourth (albeit almost a second adrift of his team leader), leaving Fernando Alonso to settle for fifth.
The world champion at least fared better than McLaren duo Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen, who will share the fourth row after making little impression in the final 20-minute shoot-out.
The silver cars should never be underestimated, however, especially since they often carry a much heavier fuel load into the race than their rivals, disguising their true speed until Sunday afternoon.
Even so, they will have a hard time keeping in touch from such lowly grid berths and the advantage of running long stints at Imola is largely negated by the short pit lane, which means pit visits cost less time than usual.
Toyota continue to make progress, with Ralf Schumacher qualifying a strong sixth and Jarno Trulli backing him up in ninth.
Mark Webber rounded out the top 10 for Williams, but team-mate Nico Rosberg was knocked out in the second 15-minute session and will line up 13th.
The most high-profile casualty of the knock-out system was Giancarlo Fisichella, who found himself on the wrong side of 11 hundredths of a second and will start his home grand prix from a highly disappointing 11th place.