It is a measure of how difficult this season has been for Scuderia Ferrari that both Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello, who between them have won the last three races here, were relatively satisfied after setting the seventh and eighth fastest times in qualifying. In real terms and allowing for the differing fuel loads carried by the other drivers, what today’s result shows is that the Ferrari team did a very good job overnight of sorting out the car handling problems that both drivers complained of after Friday’s practice.

Both Michael and Rubens move up one place on the grid, as for the third time this season, Kimi Raikkonen, who set the quickest time for McLaren-Mercedes, is penalised for having an engine change, after his power unit failed at the end of this morning’s free practice session. Raikkonen’s demotion means his team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya, who won here in 2001 now inherits pole position with title leader Fernando Alonso alongside him in the Renault. Row two is now an all-BAR affair with Jenson Button ahead of Takuma Sato.

Michael has Toyota’s Jarno Trulli alongside him on row 3 and the chances of the Ferrari duo having a good race might well depend on whether Michael and Rubens can get past Trulli and Sato in the early stages. This is especially important given that, at one hour and fifteen minutes, the high speed dash around Monza is by far the shortest race of the year.

Jean Todt: “Today’s result is a pretty faithful assessment of the situation, even allowing for the unknown factor of the various fuel loads carried by the other cars. We are well aware that we continue to suffer from the problem which has been with us all season, namely poor grip. We are working intensively with our partner Bridgestone to try and resolve it. Of course we would have preferred to be higher up the grid, particularly for the benefit of all the Ferrari employees who, today and tomorrow, have their own grandstand here, and for all our fans. We can assure them we will, as always, give it our best shot. The key factors will be strategy, reliability and the behaviour of the tyres throughout the course of the race. We hope that the excessive wear we encountered in the past few races will not happen again tomorrow.”
 

Michael Schumacher: “Considering I had to make my run early in the session, which is definitely a disadvantage, I am quite happy with my lap time, which owes a lot to the work we did here last week.

"Although we should not really use our performance in Turkey as a reference point, this is an improvement. We have worked well and, if you leave out one team, who are just too dominant, we are in the frame. Tomorrow, our realistic target is to fight for points. Although it would be wonderful to end up on the podium in front of all our home fans, I feel that is a bit too optimistic.”

Rubens Barrichello: “I think that today’s performance shows that we have done a good job of improving the car since yesterday. But I drove a good lap which started very well, until I had a bit too much graining on the front tyres, which caused the car to understeer and I lost time in the two Lesmo corners. Considering the problems we have encountered so far, I think I can be relatively pleased with today’s result and I am happy with my last good qualifying lap for Ferrari at Monza.”

Ross Brawn: “Considering our limited expectations for this weekend, I think that our qualifying performance was not too bad. Yesterday, we were not so happy with the balance of the car and the engineers and drivers have done a good job to improve that situation. Another reason for optimism is that this morning the tyres seemed to perform consistently. Therefore, we can be hopeful of having a good race. But in order to do that, it will be important to overtake the cars directly ahead of us on the grid.”

Qualifying session: Michael Schumacher: 7th 1.21.721 3 laps chassis 249; Rubens Barrichello: 8th 1.21.962 3 laps chassis 248; Temperatures: air 30/29° C, track 40/39° C