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2001 Malaysian Grand Prix 
Qualifying Session  

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Qualifying Session Report - Results

In one of the most interesting qualifying sessions in recent times, Michael Schumacher has qualified on Pole (his 6th in a row) ahead of his team-mate Rubens Barrichello. Behind the pair was not a McLaren but the Williams of Ralf Schumacher who was only 0.3 seconds behind Michael. Mika Hakkinen was 4th ahead of Jarno Trulli and Juan Pablo Montoya. Villeneuve, Coulthard, Frentzen and Panis make the top 10.

The top 3 were very close throughout the session then there is a gap of 0.8 seconds to Hakkinen. The gap between Hakkinen in 4th and Panis in 10th is under 0.6 seconds!. 

The pace of the McLaren's is certainly a surprise with both Coulthard and Hakkinen struggling throughout the session. It was only on Hakkinen's final run that he was able to move into 4th. On the other hand Williams are amazing. Surely the Michelin tyres are helping but it is not the only reason. The car appears to be well suited to this track. Ralf Schumacher was the only driver to take it to the Ferrari's while newcomer Juan Pablo Montoya with no experience and no real practice yesterday managed to be in the top 6. 
The battle of the Honda teams goes to Jordan in qualifying here as Trulli managed to get ahead of Villeneuve while Frentzen was ahead of Panis. 

Outside the top 10, Nick Heidfeld made 11th with Eddie Irvine was 12th. It must be disappointing for Irvine as he looked stronger during practice. Jean Alesi is impressive in 13th while Kimi Raikkonen is in 14th while Luciano Burti is in 15th. 
It must be very hard for Benetton to be in 16th and 17th. They are positions that they are simply not used to be in!
The Arrows pair make 18th and 19th ahead of Gaston Mazzacane who is ahead of the Minardi's.

In the battle of the team-mates, there are no real surprises this round. The biggest gap is between Alesi and Mazzacane with 1.76 seconds separating the two. Eddie Irvine is almost 0.9 seconds ahead of his team-mate Luciano Burti while Nick Heidfeld is 0.8 seconds faster than Kimi Raikkonen. Ralf Schumacher is 0.7 seconds ahead of Juan Pablo Montoya. The smallest gap is between Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello with less than a tenth of a second between them.  

Michael's pole time is more than 2 seconds faster than last year's. This will certainly be a cause of concern to the FIA. 

The race tomorrow will certainly be interesting as the tyres will behave differently under race conditions. Additionally, the race is run at 3 PM local time giving more chance for rain.

Note: Enrique Bernoldi's time was deleted after his car was found to have a front wing dimensional infringement. He qualified in 19th place but will now start from the back of the grid.

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