Jos: 'I did my best'

Published on 05 April 2003 by Huub Rothengatter

He said it before he started: "I think we will end up somewhere around 19th position." This was spot on. Minardi is not able to close the gap with the rest. Jos on 19th with Justin Wilson right behind him. Minardi starting again from the last row on the grid in the rather bumpy Brasilian Grand Prix tomorrow.

19th as predicted by Jos

No surprises at the back, the real surprise was at the front. Rubens Barrichello on pole, which made his home crowd go wild. David Coulthard joins him on the front row and he will be glad to keep Kimi Raikkonen at a distance for once. Kimi found his place on the second start row next to ... Mark Webber. Jaguar owes their best ever qualifying position to him with this amazing effort. At the end of the qulaifying session it is very exciting. Barrichello has set a very good time and no one expects Webber to come anywhere near that in his Jaguar. Barrichello is enjoying the homecrowd while his time is nearly beaten by the tall guy from Down Under. In the first and second sector Mark Webber is faster than Barrichello but in the last section he loses too much time and finally grabs third position on the grid.


Rubens Barrichello made his fans party by grabbing pole position

The other surprise is Michael Schumacher, the German wholesaler in World Championship titles who had one pole after another last year, didn't shine today. According to experts this is the signal that the F2003GA needs to be introduced, but that doesn't coincide with Barrichello's prestation. Unless it is one of Ferrari's strange tactics.

Jos Verstappen who seems to be okay with being on last start row again commented: "This is all I could out of the car. I might have gone a bit faster but that wouldn't have gained me a position on the grid. I made a minor error in the second sector when braking and accelerating. This resulted in oversteer for a moment." This explains his time loss compared to his team mate in the middle sector. In the end he stayed in front of Justin by 0.04 seconds. "I have to say that Justin is a good driver, he has done a good job all weekend. We both had the same setup, tyres and equal amounts of fuel."



Starting from the back it seems that scoring points is impossible, but this circuit is very tough for both driver and car. Minardi's reliability seems fine. And what about the weather?