Disappointment for Ferrari in qualifying

By Dale Calkins
April 1 2006

Ferrari had a dissapointing day during qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix with Schumacher 11th and Massa 16th. Felipe Massa had a rather large spin during the session which sent him into the wall while Michael Schumacher had tyre troubles and was not pleased with the performance of his car.

Disappointment for Ferrari in qualifying	Dale Calkins
Michael Schumacher Qualifying: 11th - 1'26.714 Michael Schumacher was looking for a strong performance in Australia this weekend, after a difficult Malaysian Grand Prix, two weeks ago. The weekend started well with good results in the practice sessions, but it all fell apart during qualifying. Making it past the first round of qualifying, Schumacher's second session was disrupted by rain and then a rookie mistake by the team which saw Schumacher head out on track with cooling devices still attached to his car. Michael however makes no excuses for his result, he knows the car was just not fast enough. This is what the 7-Time World Champion had to say about qualifying: "Obviously, we cannot be satisfied with this qualifying. In the second part, I used two sets of new tyres, but I did not get the most out of them. Clearly, the few drops of rain did not help just as I was on my second attempt, but the main problem today is that we were just too slow. Now we have to find out what happened and try and do something to be quicker tomorrow. The cooling fan that stayed on the car when I left the garage? It happened right after the red flag and this is always a frenetic time, so things like this can happen. Tomorrow, it will definitely not be nice to start from this far back on the grid, but we will try and make the most of the situation." Felipe Massa Qualifying: 16th - No Time Felipe Massa put in an impressive drive from last on the grid in Malaysia and he will be hoping to do the same at Albert Park as he starts 16th. Like Schumacher, Massa made it past the first knock-out session, but everything was ruined in the secound round. Felipe took too much kurb and spun the car, sending the 248 F1 into the gravel trap and eventually into the tyre barrier. This ended the Brazilian's session and he set no actual time. Here is what the young Brazilian had to say after his troubling day: "What happened was a shame, because I was on a good lap at the time I went off. I had gone into Turn 11 when I lost the rear of the car. I touched the kerb and I could not correct it in time and that was the end for me. Fortunately, the car was undamaged, which is the most important thing. It should have been a good lap, but now we have to accept this situation and do a good race, just as we did in Malaysia." Ross Brawn Technical Director Ferrari's Technical Director Ross Brawn was obviously dissapointed with today's result but is confident that the team will fight back. Here is what Ross had to say: "We struggled a bit this afternoon. Track conditions were not ideal for us and maybe the tyre we have chosen is the right one for the race, but was not ideal for the temperatures we saw today. Now we have to hope that tomorrow it will be a bit warmer, the track cleans up and the tyre works well. At the moment, we are not completely sure what happened to Felipe, so we will have a look at the data to find the cause."
April 1, 2006
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