Motor Sport: Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichella stepped away from the euphoria of being presented with his Brazilian GP winner's trophy at Imola yesterday and back into the difficult world of competing against the might of Ferrari, McLaren and Williams in almost perfect conditions in pre-qualifying ahead of tomorrow's San Marino Grand Prix.
The Italian admitted to mistakes on the lap which will see him run 10th of the 20 drivers in this afternoon's grid-determining qualifying session.
"Unfortunately I made a couple of mistakes in the last sector, otherwise I think I had the possibility to be 10th," he said. "The car is not too bad, we need to adjust the set-up a bit but I'm confident for tomorrow."
Team-mate Ralph Firman, denied a finish in Brazil through suspension failure, finished the day 17th. "My lap was going reasonably well but I made a mistake at the chicane," said the rookie. "I just hit a kerb too hard and the car got a bit over-steery."
Times after first qualifying: 1 M Schumacher (Ger) Ferrari 1min 20.628secs, 2 R Barrichello (Bra) Ferrari at 0.454secs, 3 R Schumacher (Ger) Williams-BMW at 0.565, 4 JP Montoya (Col) Williams-BMW at 0.862, 5 M Webber (Aus) Jaguar Racing at 1.041, 6 J Button (Eng) BAR-Honda at 1.263, 7 J Villeneuve (Can) BAR-Honda at 1.298, 8 K Raikkonen (Fin) McLaren-Mercedes at 1.519, 9 D Coulthard (Sco) McLaren-Mercedes at 1.698, 10 H-H Frentzen (Ger) Sauber at 1.903, 11 G Fisichella (Ita) Jordan-Ford at 2.096. 17 R Firman (Eng) Jordan-Ford at 3.732.
