Montoya Scores First Pole as Williams Dominate

Williams drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher secured the team's first front row lock-out for four years on Saturday as they dominated qualifying for the German Grand Prix.

Montoya claimed his first pole position as he tussled with Schumacher throughout the hour-long session. Williams' last qualifying one-two was at the British Grand Prix in 1997. The heat and humidity was relentless as the teams prepared for the qualifying session. With track temperatures hitting 39 degrees Celsius and the air just eight degrees cooler the conditions were tough for the 22 drivers.

As usual, the Minardi team were first to send a driver out in the session as Tarso Marques took to the track, closely followed by the two Arrows of Jos Verstappen and Enrique Bernoldi. The trio did three of their allocated 12 laps before returning to the pits.

David Coulthard was the first of the McLaren or Ferrari drivers to come out into the session and he immediately went onto provisional pole position in his McLaren with a lap time in the one minute, 39 seconds. Ralf Schumacher, however, came out soon after and he jumped ahead of Coulthard by eight-tenths of a second to continue the good form he had shown in the morning's practice in his Williams.

Coulthard's teammate Mika Hakkinen also came out on track and he too was immediately on the pace, but not quick enough to catch Ralf Schumacher as he went second with his first flying lap to drop Coulthard to third. Montoya then joined the fray and he went second on his first flyer to make it a Williams one-two, but the Ferraris were still to come out.

Michael Schumacher did come out moments after Montoya's first lap but he failed to make an immediate impression and was left down in fourth place, while his teammate Rubens Barrichello soon followed over the line with the provisional fifth quickest time.

The two Williams looked unstoppable as the superior power in their BMW engines allowed Ralf Schumacher to strengthen his position at the top with another quicker lap, this time by three-tenths of a second, with 20 minutes of the session to go. But Montoya sensed the chance to claim his first pole position and five minutes later the Colombian driver found extra time around the circuit and knocked his teammate off top-spot.

Ralf Schumacher tried to respond and was one-thousandth of a second inside Montoya's time before he came across some traffic in the last sector and ended up maintaining his second place on the provisional grid.

With just under ten minutes of the session remaining Jordan's Jarno Trulli was forced to pull off the track as the Honda engine in his car blew up. He had broken down in front of the Ostkurve - the furthest part of the track and was out of the session.

Trulli was ninth on the grid at the time and ended the session 10th. His teammate Ricardo Zonta, in his first race after the sacking of Heinz-Harald Frentzen qualified in a lowly 15th. Late in the session, Coulthard improved his time and overtook Barrichello for fifth place, but that was before the grand finale when all of the top six came out for one last push.

Prost's Luciano Burti provided the only crash of the session in the dying stages as he ploughed through the gravel and into a tyre wall after turn 12. Jenson Button also retired late in the session as the engine in his Benetton gave up. But the session belonged to Williams, who must now feel confident of a third race win of the season.

Pos Driver Team Times 1. Montoya Williams BMW (M) 1:38.117 250.415 km/h 2. R.Schumacher Williams BMW (M) 1:38.136 + 0.019 3. Hakkinen Mclaren Mercedes (B) 1:38.811 + 0.694 4. M.Schumacher Ferrari (B) 1:38.941 + 0.824 5. Coulthard Mclaren Mercedes (B) 1:39.574 + 1.457 6. Barrichello Ferrari (B) 1:39.682 + 1.565 7. Heidfeld Sauber Petronas (B) 1:39.921 + 1.804 8. Raikkonen Sauber Petronas (B) 1:40.072 + 1.955 9. de la Rosa Jaguar Cosworth (M) 1:40.265 + 2.148 10. Trulli Jordan Honda (B) 1:40.322 + 2.205 11. Irvine Jaguar Cosworth (M) 1:40.371 + 2.254 12. Villeneuve BAR Honda (B) 1:40.437 + 2.320 13. Panis BAR Honda (B) 1:40.610 + 2.493 14. Alesi Prost Acer (M) 1:40.740 + 2.623 15. Zonta Jordan Honda (B) 1:41.174 + 3.057 16. Burti Prost Acer (M) 1:41.213 + 3.096 17. Fisichella Benetton Renault (M) 1:41.299 + 3.182 18. Button Benetton Renault (M) 1:41.438 + 3.321 19. Bernoldi Arrows Asiatech (B) 1:41.668 + 3.551 20. Verstappen Arrows Asiatech (B) 1:41.870 + 3.753 21. Alonso Minardi European (M) 1:41.913 + 3.796 22. Marques Minardi European (M) 1:42.716 + 4.599 All Timing Unofficial