Bridgestone Saturday press release - 2nd April 15:33pm GMT

Michael Schumacher continued to look on good form today in his new Bridgestone shod F2005 Ferrari. With tyre choices completed by early morning, the World Champion completed just four laps in the first of the morning’s practice sessions but set the quickest time in the process. He continued his preparations in second practice posting the ninth fastest time and as track temperatures soared to 54 degrees Celcius in this afternoon’s first qualifying session he set a time of 1 minute 30.237seconds to finish the day as third quickest. Teammate Rubens Barrichello sat out both practice sessions as a result of his problems yesterday but was back on track in qualifying. Considering his lack of running time in the new car, his team was happy with fifteenth. Jordan and Minardi’s drivers had another busy day with India’s Narain Karthikeyan in particular, working hard to put on a good performance.

Hisao Suganuma, Technical Manager of Bridgestone Motorsport:
“Well, it’s good to see a Ferrari back near the top of the [provisional] grid. We do need to see what happens in tomorrow’s final qualifying session but based on the practice and first qualifying data it looks as if the package could be quite competitive this weekend. Rubens unfortunately has not had much running at all so his knowledge of the car’s characteristics is not as in depth as Michael’s at the moment but under the circumstances he did a good job. Jordan and Minardi put in their best efforts too, so overall I am quite happy with today’s first qualifying. ”

Ross Brawn, Technical Director of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro:
“We have had a reasonably good day today. Rubens did a great job considering his qualifying lap was only his second proper lap in the car all weekend. Michael has put us where we need to be and assuming we have a good final qualifying session tomorrow, we will be in with a chance on Sunday in the race. The consistency of the Bridgestone tyre, both yesterday and today, has been very good and we have reason to be optimistic. We are also learning more and more about the [new] car every time we run.”