Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello gained the first-ever pole position for the Chinese Grand Prix yesterday after Ferrari teammate Michael Schumacher spun out seconds into his qualifying lap.
It was the 12th career pole and second straight for Barrichello. He now has three for the season : The US, Italian and Chinese races.
PHOTO: AFP
Barrichello recorded a time of 1 minute, 34.012 seconds on the brand-new 5.451km Shanghai International Circuit.
Schumacher spun on the first turn of the new track after leading the pre-qualifying an hour earlier in 1:33.185. He will start in the last row in Sunday's 56-lap race.
It will be the German's worst starting position as a Ferrari driver. In 1998 he had the pole position for the final race of the season, the Japanese GP, but stalled on the grid and was put to the back of the pack.
In 1995, as a Benetton driver, he was 16th on the grid but went on to win the Belgian Grand Prix.
Midway through the first turn, Schumacher lost control of his Ferrari and spun off the track into the wide gravel area. He went back on the track and completed the lap but failed to record a time.
The 2004 champion said the cause of the spin was not known.
"It's the first time it's happened to me. We need to find the explanation for it which we haven't done yet," he said. "The good thing is that we have all the cars in the Ferrari sandwich, one is in front one is in the back."
Schumacher already has 82 career victories, 12 season wins and a seventh drivers' titles, all records.
Barrichello, who won the Italian Grand Prix two weeks ago, was astonished to see Schumacher off the track.
"The right word is that it doesn't happen often," Barrichello said.
"I was shocked when I saw Michael spin. He doesn't do that," he added. "You're always expecting something good [from him]."
At the Italian GP, Schumacher spun on the first lap , dropped to 16th and came back to finish second, coming within a second of Barrichello in the final laps. He and barrichello have teamed to finish 1-2 in eight of the 15 races so far.
Schumacher has already wrapped up the driver's championship on 136 points so far, with Barrichello second on 98 points. Barrichello can clinch second with a good showing in the race or a poor finish by Jenson Button, who is third with 71.
Barrichello acknowledged drivers were still learning the nuances of the new circuit, which may have affected Schumacher.
"You can try so many lines, but you can make mistakes," Barrichello said.
Schumacher refused to write off his first Chinese Grand Prix.
"You know in Formula One you should never give up," he said. "If you know me, I never do."
Kimi Raikkonen of McLaren, who won at Belgium in August, was at 1:34.178 for second.
Button of BAR-Honda, was third in 1:34.295. Button is trying to help BAR-Honda hold on to its second place position in the team standings behind Ferrari and ahead of Renault.
"It's good to be in front of the two Renaults," Button said. "And then we are going to see what happens in the race and it is positive for our strategy."
Jarno Trulli, the only other non-Ferrari driver to win this season, is not racing Sunday after Renault terminated his contract after the Italian Grand Prix. His place was taken by Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 world champion who is making a return after being dropped by BAR-Honda at the end of last season.
Villeneuve was 13th in 1:35.384
Ralf Schumacher, Michael's brother, came in fifth at 1:34.891 in his return to Formula One racing. He missed six races after crashing into a wall at the US Grand Prix in Indianapolis in June and cracking two vertebrae.
The other Williams driver, Juan Pablo Montoya, was 11th in 1:34.458. Giancarlo Fisichella of was sixth in 1:34.286. Sauber's Felipe Massa was fourth and Giancarlo Fisichella the Sauber-Petronas team was seventh.
Max Mosley, president of the International Automobile Feder-ation, is dismissing Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone's push for major teams to run three cars next season, saying he expects enough teams will be around to maintain the two-car format.
"I'm not sure at all whether they can put in a competitive third car because that will cost each of them significantly more. Where is the money going to come from?" Mosely told reporters at the inaugural Chinese Grand Prix.
The three-car proposal is aimed at keeping enough cars in a race to make it interesting, even as numbers of teams in the sport have steadily dwindled from as many as 18 at the beginning of the 1990s to just 10 this year.
That number is due to fall by at least one next season after Jaguar announced last week they were dropping out next season. Cellar-dwelling teams Jordan and Minardi are also in trouble after Ford announced it wouldn't continue providing them with engines.
Ecclestone, whose company controls the commercial rights to Formula One, said he thought allowing three cars would be a "good idea," and urged a decision soon on the matter.
Mosley called that a "short-term" measure that wouldn't address the sport's basic problem of runaway costs that are making it too expensive for smaller, privately-owned teams to compete.
He said he believed Jaguar would find a buyer and Jordan and Minardi new engine suppliers, ensuring at least 10 teams would compete next season.
SAFE SHANGHAI
Shanghai authorities have mobilized 4,000 security officers for today's inaugural Chinese Grand Prix, prepared to deal with threats ranging from petty vandalism to terrorist attacks, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.
Police have set up a security cordon extending more than 1km from the Shanghai International Circuit in the western suburb of Jiading, allowing only cars with specially issued parking passes to enter. More security workers guard the entrances to individual parking lots and all track access points.
RACE TO THE DEATH
British medical journal The Lancet has blasted the exploitation of the Chinese Grand Prix by cigarette advertisers in an article entitled "A Race to the Death."
Five of the 10 Formula One teams competing are sponsored by tobacco companies, with this season's champion receiving a reported US$150 million annually from Marlboro.
Although the companies have been banned from advertising on trackside billboards in Shanghai, teams they sponsor have kept their cigarette brand logos on race cars.
China's national sports bureau said it intended the advertising ban to cover promotional materials as well but cigarette logos have been prominently displayed on team handouts, publications, and the backdrops used for photo shoots.
"The one certainty of the race, however, is that its real winners will be the transnational tobacco companies," the Lancet article said.
China -- which accounts for one out of every three cigarettes sold globally -- has already banned most cigarette advertising, including on television and billboards. All forms of tobacco advertising would be banned if the legislature ratifies the UN Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Formula One has agreed to drop tobacco money by 2006.
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