Top Qualifying

Top Qualifying was dominated by young Scotsman Dario Franchitti who was
only 10th after the qualifying session but set pole in Top Qualifying,
three 100ths of a second faster than his closest pursuer Kurt Thiim. In
the meantime Franchitti's team mate Bernd Schneider, clear leader in DTM
and ITC, performed a dissapointing lap and achieved only the slowest
time of Top Qualifying A. A big shock happened when Michael Bartels'
Alfa Romeo had a heavy impact and caught fire. But Bartels could get out
of his car without any injuries and even the car wasn't damaged as badly
as it had looked in the first moments."

15 - Dario Franchitti "Hey, pole position! That's much better than
expected. All weekend I wasn't as fast as I'd wished to be. And I had
two mistakes in my fast lap. So I didn't believe that this time would be
fast enough for pole position, especially as there were nine others in
Top Qualifying A who went on the track after me and had the chance to
beat me."

6 - Kurt Thiim "It seems that I just was too passive and didn't attack
enough. I didn't make a clear mistake, but I didn't drive with a knife
between the teeth as you should do here in Singen. Instead of doing that
I braked to early several times."

7 - Alessandro Nannini "It wasn't a problem of the track, which isn't
slower as it was during the other sessions. Probably I just pushed too
hard and lost some time this way."

8 - Nicola Larini "Altogether the lap wasn't too bad, although I made a
mistake in the corner in front of the chicane. And it would have been
helpful if I hadn't had missed one hour of yesterday's free practice
session because of a broken gearbox."

30 - Gabriele Tarquini "Fifth position, that's great! Imagine, this
Top Qualifying is something unusual for me. The track was a little bit
slower than in the morning session and my tyres were used, so I'm not
disappointed that I was two and a half 10ths of a second slower than
this morning. Now I'm really looking forward to the race."

1 - Klaus Ludwig "What can I say. I had expected to achieve a time
faster than 1:15, for my car was competitive enough. But I made two
small mistakes which probably did cost me some 10ths of a second. It's a
pity."

17 - Ellen Lohr "I'm rather happy with my position, but not with my lap.
All weekend I was fast in the first part of the track, but slow in the
chicane. This time it was just the other way round. Imagine, what would
have been possible, if I had been as fast as normal in the beginning of
my lap."

9 - Manuel Reuter "I don't understand how I could lose so much time in
the last third of my lap. I think I didn't make a mistake. The only
reason I can imagine is a gear change problem, which happened to me
in the morning session. Possibly this problem wasn't solved as we had
hoped."

18 - Stefano Modena "May be, I pushed too hard. The car was very
competitive, but in the chicane suddenly there was nearly no grip at
all. Up to this point my lap time was very good, but this cost me all my
chances for a better position in the starting grid."

26 - Giancarlo Fisichella "The beginning of the lap was nice, but in the
chicane my brakes suddenly left me. But if a problem like this won't
happen tomorrow, I'll be the winner in the end of the day. Hopefully."

14 - Alexander Grau "My rear overbraked awfully. Now we got to analyze,
where this problem did come from. Anyhow this lap was total rubbish. But
that's normal. If something doesn't work as you want it to you start
pushing and pushing and everything gets worse and worse."

19 - Michael Bartels "This was my fault, I was too fast and went off. I
had too much speed at the exit of the chicane and lost control. When I
saw the fire, I run away at once. I'm alright, but I'm afraid, that the
car's chassis was damaged at the right front."

4 - Jan Magnussen "I didn't make a special mistake, but I was too slow
all over the track. After my accident in the free practice I couldn't do
enough laps to learn everything about the track. That's racing."