Barrichello takes Brazil pole, Webber third
Updated
Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello fired up the fans on Saturday as the first Brazilian since Ayrton Senna to claim pole position in his home Formula One Grand Prix in Sao Paulo.
After eight years of failure at Interlagos, the local favourite delighted the screaming spectators with a lap of one minute 13.807 seconds to push McLaren's David Coulthard out of the top slot by 0.011.
Australian Mark Webber, surprise fastest in Friday's qualifying for Jaguar, produced another stunning run to claim third place alongside Finland's Kimi Raikkonen in the second McLaren.
Webber, last man out on track in the single-shot format, was quicker than Barrichello through the first two sectors and looked to be heading for pole himself until losing time on the final stretch.
"On top of what happened yesterday, this is a nice little reward," said the Australian, who can be expected to pit before those ahead of him on the grid. "We know we have made clear progress so it's a good day for us."
Barrichello's team-mate and five-time world champion Michael Schumacher was eclipsed and qualified a distant seventh - his lowest grid position since he started ninth in his home German Grand Prix of August 1998.
It was the Brazilian's first pole since Hungary last August, before qualifying became as much about strategy as speed under rule changes introduced this year, and the seventh of his career.
"It's going to be a challenge to read the papers tomorrow, it's going to be a challenge to get here, the whole day tomorrow is going to be a challenge," said Barrichello, wary of the national reaction.
The Brazilian said before that he expected winning at home to feel like taking the championship but he was prepared for the pressure and a rapturous reception from what should now be a capacity crowd on Sunday.
"What I have asked for in my life, since when I was a kid, was to be seated in a competitive car around here and to be waving to my public from pole position," he told a news conference after qualifying.
"The only wish I have is to win the race tomorrow."
Winning sequence
Barrichello has not finished a race in the city of his birth since 1994, when fellow Paulista Senna took pole little more than a month before his death at Imola, and has never before been on the podium here.
But hopes were running high after Saturday's decisive one-lap qualifying that 2003 is the year 'Rubinho' will finally break his terrible streak and continue a Brazilian winning sequence instead.
Compatriots Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet and Senna won respectively in 1973, 1983 and 1993.
Coulthard, winner of the first race in Australia this season and at Interlagos in 2001, secured his first front row start of the season.
"We all have to wait and see tomorrow what the strategy means," said the Scot. "As far as I know, I think we are in good shape."
Italian Jarno Trulli was fifth for Renault and Germany's Ralf Schumacher sixth for Williams.
Italian Giancarlo Fisichella boosted Jordan's hopes of scoring points in their 200th Grand Prix with a strong eighth position ahead of the Williams of last year's pole man Juan Pablo Montoya of Colombia in ninth place.
Spaniard Fernando Alonso, who became the youngest ever driver to start on pole at the last race in Malaysia, could not repeat the feat for Renault and was on the fifth row.
Little more than a second separated Barrichello from 15th placed Frenchman Olivier Panis in one of the closest qualifying sessions of recent years.
Topics: motor-sports
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