By Jane Gibbons
July 15 2006

A round up of the French Qualifying session where Spaniard Fernando Alonso managed to get his R26 ont the second row of the grid in 3rd position while Giancarlo Fisichella struggled and managed 7th position Qualifying for the French Grand Prix saw sweltering
track temperatures once again and an air temperature
of 35º. After a very tight session Fernando still
produced some excellent laps and a best time of
1'15"785 for third place whilst Giancarlo ended a
disappointing seventh some 8 tenths off the pole time
and behind both Toyotas. In fact there were some
unexpected reversals in fortune for several of the
Michelin runners and the second consecutive front row
for Ferrari in spite of Michael appearing to have some
problems with his car. The newly shortened third
session saw some early excitement as Fernando beat
Michael to a bit of a drag race away from the start of
and then overtook him on track a few laps later.

Renault had elected to wait until the end of the first
session to leave the garage and Fernando immediately
produced a safe 6th place whilst Fisi ended up closer
to the drop zone with his time of 1'16"825 good enough
for only 12th place. Three of the Bridgestone runners
Trulli, MS and Ralf made up the top three at this
point with the only sub 1:1600 times. The next 12 were
all within less than a second of each other including
15th the placed Midland of Christian Albers. Once
again it was a disaster for Jenson Button as he failed
to make the first cut along with Jacques Villeneuve
who had looked particularly quick after heading the
timesheets in the first session.

The second session saw the times even closer with
another Bridgestone shod top three headed by Micheal
Schumacher with a 1'15"111 and Ralf in front of Massa
in third place. Fernando's time of 1:15706 was enough
to keep him safely in 4th albeit a slightly worrying
half a second slower than Schumacher whilst Giancarlo
looked to be living dangerously again with an 8th
placed 1'15"901 only fractions faster than 10th man
David Coulthard.

It remains to be seen what the fuel strategy will be
for the race and whether there will be any further
problems with the Ferrari cars after they appeared to
have some technical issues today. Fernando seemed
happy enough to be back in the top three and his time
indicated that the gap to Ferrari is much less than at
Indy. It remains to be seen whether Giancarlo is on a
higher fuel load or just simply struggled a bit at one
of his least successful circuits and I guess he will
be hoping for the rain predicted by some forecasters
to happen during the race tomorrow!


1. 5 M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari B 1'15"493 210.345 Km/h 0
2. 6 MASSA Ferrari B 1'15"510 210.298 Km/h 0
3. 1 ALONSO Renault M 1'15"785 209.535 Km/h 0
4. 8 TRULLI Toyota B 1'16"036 208.843 Km/h 0
5. 7 R.SCHUMACHER Toyota B 1'16"091 208.692 Km/h 0
6. 3 RAIKKONEN McLaren Mercedes M 1'16"281 208.172 Km/h 0
7. 2 FISICHELLA Renault M 1'16"345 207.998 Km/h 0
8. 4 DE LA ROSA McLaren Mercedes M 1'16"632 207.219 Km/h 0
9. 10 ROSBERG Williams Cosworth B 1'18"272 202.877 Km/h 0
10.14 COULTHARD RedBull Ferrari M 1'18"663 201.869 Km/h 0

11. 9 WEBBER Williams Cosworth B 1'16"129 208.588 Km/h 0
12. 16 HEIDFELD BMW Sauber M 1'16"294 208.137 Km/h 0
13. 15 KLIEN RedBull Ferrari M 1'16"433 207.758 Km/h 0
14. 11 BARRICHELLO Honda M 1'17"027 206.156 Km/h 0
15. 21 SPEED Toro Rosso Cosw. M 1'17"063 206.060 Km/h 0
16. 19 ALBERS Midland Toyota B 1'17"105 205.948 Km/h 0

17. 20 LIUZZI Toro Rosso Cosw. M 1'17"164 205.790 Km/h 0
18. 17 VILLENEUVE BMW Sauber M 1'17"304 205.418 Km/h 0
19. 12 BUTTON Honda M 1'17"495 204.911 Km/h 0
20. 18 MONTEIRO Midland Toyota B 1'17"589 204.663 Km/h 0
21. 23 MONTAGNY S. Aguri F1 Honda B 1'18"637 201.935 Km/h 0
22. 22 SATO S. Aguri F1 Honda B 1'18"845 201.403 Km/h 0