Ferrari dominates as Kimi's car fails
By Karl King
March 11 2006
The new layout of qualifying was a success today in the eyes of the Formula 1 fan, but the day could not have ended any worse for Kimi Raikkonen. Just ten minutes into the first phase of the tree section format, The Finn lost his rear wing at Turn 10.
The McLaren driver's suspension failed ripping of the Michelin and wrecking the back of his MP4-21. Raikkonen used his three remaining wheels to navigate his way to the pits, and a red flag was brought out to clear the track of the Woking squad's debris.
As the timing resumed there was only just over 4 minutes left which left to a near-whole field scramble to set a lap time to get out of the danger zone. The six unlucky drivers to grab the places from 16th through to 22nd were Ralf Schumacher, the MF1 cars of Albers and Montiero and the Aguri's of Sato and Ide respectively. Of course dead last on the grid is Kimi Raikkonen.
In the second session Juan Pablo Montoya was safely through as he split the Renaults of Alonso and Fisichella to grab the second slot.
Heidfeld did a solid job in the BMW with only seconds to go to grab the fourth slot followed by the Ferraris of Massa and Schumacher respectively.
Klien and Webber both set faster times than their team mates who were knocked out in session 2, followed by Rubens Barrichello in the Hondo who just scraped through into the final session. Barrichello has not been on it since he arrived in Bahrain, and has shown no promise for the Honda fans.
Knocked out in session 2 were Villeneuve, Rosberg, Coulthard, Jarno Trulli who pretty much ended a bad day for Toyota and will start 14th, followed by the STR's of Liuzzi and rookie Speed.
In the final phase we saw Michael Schumacher pip new team mate to the top slot by 0.04s to equal Ayrton Senna's record of 65 career poles.
Jenson Button had a good session setting the 3rd fastest time ahead of World Champ Alonso. Juan Pablo Montoya set the fifth fastest time, McLaren's hopes resting on the Columbian's shoulders for the weekend.
Rubens Barrichello put in a better performance than the previous phase going faster than Mark Webber's Williams and Christian Klien who drove excellently today securing 7th.
Giancarlo Fisichella dropped to ninth and Nick Heidfeld, who went wide on his best lap had to settle for 10th.