29.05.2004 The Autodelta Alfa Romeo drivers struggle in practice with Fabrizio Giovanardi the fastest of the trio on row three: qualifying report AND times from Brno
After breaking their duck at Hockenheim with Jordi Gené, SEAT
claimed a second consecutive pole position, thanks to Rickard Rydell’s fantastic
lap with only one minute of the session remaining.
It also meant that there was a fifth different driver on pole for each of the
five events held so far.
The session was absolutely breathtaking, with
pole position changing hands six times in half-an-hour. Rydell himself started
hostilities, clocking a provisional fastest lap in 2:11.044 only four minutes
into the session.
His SEAT team-mate Frank Diefenbacher (2:11.369) and Autodelta men Fabrizio
Giovanardi (2:11.896) and Augusto Farfus (2:11.983) were provisionally placed in
second, third and fourth positions, until Carly Motors’ Independent driver Tom
Coronel squeezed into second place with an astonishing 2:11.275.
The fastest laps were already well under last year’s pole position by Antonio García (2:12.620), when Gabriele Tarquini jumped into the lead posting an impressive 2:10.950. And only one third of the session has passed by. Three minutes later García reminded everybody he was on pole in 2003, and improved the fastest time to 2:10.722. His joy did not last for long, actually less than one minute, before Rydell got to the top again with a lap in 2:10.625. And again, the situation changed in a handful of seconds, when Andy Priaulx was clocked in 2:10.501.
The Briton’s exploit seemed to have secured
him the pole, as the following attempts weren’t good enough to oust him. First
Dirk Müller moved up to second, completing a lap in 2:10.502, only one
thousandth of a second slower than Priaulx. Then Giovanardi improved his own
time to 2:10.586, meaning a provisional third position for him. But suddenly
Jordi Gené demoted him to third with a lap in 2:10.505.
With four minutes left in the session, the game seemed to be up, with Priaulx,
Dirk Müller and Gené in the first three positions, all of them covered by only
four one thousandths. However, Rydell came up to settle the argument with a lap
in 2:09.913, which was good enough for his second pole position in the ETCC,
after that in Estoril back in 2002 for Volvo.
Coronel set pole in the Independents Trophy, with a time of 2:10.861 and a seventh position on the overall grid. As for the current championship leader, Jörg Müller, he was qualified 11th. “I do not really know what was the problem,” was his terse comment.
Oregon Team’s Michele Bartyan did not post a qualifying time, as he went off on his first lap, and could not rejoin having received external aid.
"I have mixed feelings. OK, I was fastest
in the first free practice, but this is easy to explain: in Hockenheim I was out
at the second corner of the first race, meaning that I saved a new set of tyres
from that meeting, commented Alfa Romeo's fastest runner Fabrizio Giovanardi
after qualifying. "And I was the only one to use new tyres in the first
practice.
"In qualifying I’m only fifth. If we forget Rydell, who was so much quicker than
the rest of the field, and we look at the three drivers who are just in front of
me, the gap is very narrow," the former ETCC Champion continued. "This means
that my car was not so bad, though it was definitely not at the top. My concern
is that we are going to have tough times in the races, because of the front tyre
wear. I don’t know about SEAT, but for sure BMW will be better than us on this.”
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