New rules add air of mystery

Max Mosley, doubtless, permitted himself a smile when Michael Schumacher ended the first qualifying session for tomorrow's Australian Grand Prix only fourth fastest, outpaced by his own Ferrari team-mate Rubens Barrichello, and interlopers Kimi Raikkonen and Jacques Villeneuve.

It was precisely what the new qualifying regulations pushed through by Mosley, the president of FIA, had been designed to promote.

Throw in Jenson Button in fifth place. Fernando Alonso in seventh, and the BMW-Williams cars of Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher in only 10th and 16th places, and you get the picture.

Thus far Formula One, 2003 style, is different. How different is something that it is as yet impossible to quantify. It may not even be possible to tell today, when a second single-lap qualifying session, run in the reverse order of yesterday's, will determine the starting grid.

"Today is the one lap all weekend where all of the cars have fresh tyres and low fuel," the Ferrari sporting director, Jean Todt, said, and therein lies the fascination.

After today's second qualifying session all of the cars will be impounded until the race on Sunday. Teams will be able to carry out trivial work only under supervision, but that does not include refuelling or changing tyres. They must start the race in the configuration in which they finished qualifying. Inevitably, somebody, probably Jordan or Minardi who need the publicity to attract further sponsorship, will opt to run a low fuel load in order to start high up the grid. They will then have to make an early stop, but the brief glory may be worth it.

The fact that some will run higher fuel loads than others will make the situation less predictable, as nobody will know the truth about how quick each car is until the closing stages of the race. But yesterday provided some interesting pointers.

The Ferraris are quick and so are the McLarens. The BMW-Williams cars are in trouble. The BARs were surprisingly fleet though their Honda engines proved unreliable when Villeneuve's blew itself into a ball of flame after five laps, and Button's followed suit five laps later.

Button, who ran earlier in the session because the starting order was based on the finishing order of the 2002 series, said: "It was nice to be fighting with the quicker guys."

If Ferrari and McLaren achieved their aim of having two cars in the top six and were thus guaranteed to run when the track was at its quickest today (assuming that the predicted rain did not upset things), BMW-Williams' performance was the wrong kind of surprise. Montoya said his car felt reasonable but lacked speed, while Ralf Schumacher reported his being "mega-nervous and heavily understeering". Throw a brace of quick Renaults and two quick Toyotas into the mix, and the prospects for an interesting session today were there.

And right at the front of the running order were the two British rookies. Justin Wilson did a good job to lap within four-tenths of a second of experienced Minardi team-mate Jos Verstappen, and was to be the first man out today. "It could have been a bit better, but it's still a case of becoming familiar with everything," he said.

The Jordan driver Ralph Firman was 17th, which he means he was fourth out. "I am very disappointed," he said, "but it was my first time qualifying the car and I was still learning the circuit. What counts is Sunday. I was driving as hard as I could to find the limit and pushed too hard."

Australian Grand Prix (Melbourne) First qualifying session (for tomorrow's race): 1 R Barrichello (Br) Ferrari 1min 26.372sec; 2 K Raikkonen (Fin) McLaren-Mercedes 1:26.551; 3 J Villeneuve (Can) BAR-Honda 1:26.832; 4 M Schumacher (Ger) Ferrari 1:27.103; 5 J Button (GB) BAR-Honda 1:27.159; 6 D Coulthard (GB) McLaren-Mercedes 1:27.242; 7 F Alonso (Sp) Renault 1:27.255; 8 O Panis (Fr) Toyota 1:27.352; 9 J Trulli (It) Renault 1:27.411; 10 J P Montoya (Col) Williams-BMW 1:27.450; 11 C Da Matta (Br) Toyota 1:27.478; 12 N Heidfeld (Ger) Sauber-Ferrari 1:27.510; 13 H-H Frentzen (Ger) Sauber-Ferrari 1:27.563; 14 G Fisichella (It) Jordan-Ford 1:27.633; 15 M Webber (Aus) Jaguar 1:27.675; 16 R Schumacher (Ger) Williams-BMW 1:28.266; 17 R Firman (GB) Jordan-Ford 1:29.977; 18 J Verstappen (Neth) Minardi-Ford 1:30.053; 19 A Pizzonia (Br) Jaguar 1:30.092; 20 J Wilson (GB) Minardi-Ford 1:30.479.