Brawn Surprised by Schumacher's Recovery

Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn said he was surprised that Michael Schumacher was able to recover from an error early in his qualifying run to take pole position for Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix.

Brawn watched as Schumacher slid at turn two and lost time with the benchmark time of McLaren-Mercedes' driver Kimi Raikkonen already proving difficult after dirt had been dragged onto the circuit by drivers.

But Schumacher somehow made up for the mistake and snatched top spot - his third consecutive pole position - as he bettered Championship leader Raikkonen's time by just 0.039 seconds to leave Brawn surprised.

"You get a picture of how a lap will go and I was really concerned that he wouldn't be able to do it," said Brawn, who like Schumacher was heavily criticised in Austria last year over the team orders debacle.

"He made an error at turn two and lost time and I thought that was it - we would not be on pole. But he somehow pulled it back. Maybe he found the quickest way through turn two - the rally style!"