At the end of a very closely contested qualifying session in Bahrain, which proves that the performance levels of the top teams is very similar this season, Michael Schumacher recorded his best qualifying of the year so far, posting the third fastest time, behind the two men who occupied the front row in Malaysia a fortnight ago, Fernando Alonso (Renault) and Jarno Trulli (Toyota.)

The world champion and his Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro engineers had worked hard all weekend to improve their understanding of the F2005, which is still in its infancy in development terms and with each passing session they made good progress, particularly thanks to the efforts of Bridgestone on the tyre front. “All the work to bring the new car to Bahrain has paid off,” commented a satisfied Michael Schumacher.

Team-mate Rubens Barrichello is currently fifteenth fastest, but given the circumstances surrounding the Brazilian’s weekend, technical director Ross Brawn described his efforts as “fantastic.” After being sidelined with a gearbox problem on Friday morning, the team traced the problem to a faulty bearing. This was rectified, but concerned about reliability, the team decided that Barrichello would not take part in the final 90 minutes of free practice this morning to ensure that he could complete his one flying lap and set a qualifying time.

A new gearbox is arriving from Italy tonight. Tomorrow morning, once the cars are released from parc ferme at 8h30 local time, the FIA technical staff will come to the Ferrari garage to confirm that the new gearbox is built to an identical specification to the old one and will then authorise the fitment of the new ‘box. The Ferrari mechanics are well practiced at carrying out this change and the whole operation should be completed in one hour, allowing plenty of time to get Barrichello’s car ready for final qualifying, which begins at 10:30 local time.

Given that this afternoon’s lap times were all very close – the top nine drivers were all within the same second – it should be possible for Barrichello to make up some places.

Especially so if the Scuderia strategists decide to put him on an aggressive strategy in terms of starting the qualifying and therefore the race with a fairly light fuel load. Completing the top six behind Schumacher are Nick Heidfeld (Williams-BMW,) Giancarlo Fisichella (Renault) and Mark Webber (Williams-BMW.) Both Minardi drivers required engine changes this weekend, but as they are currently the slowest two in the field, a ten place penalty on the grid will not make much difference to them.

While temperatures were higher than on Friday, and reached 44 Celsius, an even hotter day is predicted for tomorrow. While final qualifying will take place in the relative cool of mid-morning, the race itself will be a very tough proposition for man and machine.