Montoya on pole; Jos 19th

Published on 15 September 2001 by Thorsten Hendriks

Juan Pablo Montoya is starting from pole in tomorrow's Grand Prix at Monza. He left the two Ferraris and his team mate Ralf Schumacher well behind him. Jos Verstappen ended up on 19th, which was to be expected and Enrique is 0.067 seconds in front of him.

Alex Yoong is the first to go out but has to give up with a broken gear box after having driven only a few hundred meters. Plenty of media coverage, but not the way he wanted it. His team mate Alonso is the second driver to go out but he also has to give up his attempt due to similar problems with his Minardi. Eventually both drives manage to qualify in the same car; good work by the Minardi mechanics.

First pole is for Michael Schumacher in 1.22.6, Juan Pablo Montoya improves this time to 1.22.4 and later turns it into 1.22.216. Jos drove 3 runs of 4 laps. "I hoped to get a better result with two flying laps per run but we are just short of power. If you see what the gap is between us and the cars in front of us. We don't even have a qualifying engine. Oh well we will see what happens tomorrow." he comments with a deep sigh.

Four minutes before the end Mika Hakkinen goes off track at high speed, resulting in a code red. The Fin is allright and when the session is restarted Jos begins his last run. In the first section he is improving but when he crosses the checkered flag he has lost quite some time and doesn't manage to improve his previous time. To end with Jos's words: "we will see what happens tomorrow."