Newz Forum: AUTO: Schumacher wins pole

Michael Schumacher screamed to the 57th pole position of his illustrious career with a "mind-blowing" lap which smashed the Sepang qualifying lap record by over two seconds.

Schumacher's screaming lap of one minute 33.074 seconds left his effort of 1:35.220secs, set when securing pole in 2001, looking pale in comparison.He finished more than half a second ahead of Australia's Mark Webber who secured a front row start for the first time in his career with an equally impressive display, clocking 1:33.715 to prompt cheers in the Jaguar garage.Schumacher's Ferrari team-mate Rubens Barrichello completed his best lap of the weekend in a time of 1:33.756 despite not being altogether comfortable with his car to claim third place, with the Williams of Juan Pablo Montoya (1:34.054) alongside him in fourth.Spain's Fernando Alonso, who claimed pole position here last year and went quickest in the preliminary session, spun off the track at turn 13 and will start from the back of the grid.But all eyes were on the front row, where Schumacher had once again stamped his authority on the world of Formula One and Webber underlined his status as one of the sport's rising stars.

broke the track record and won the pole by 1/2 second....those are HUGE numbers, will anyone come close to michael this season?

Schumacher has proved again what a fantastic driver he is,people played down his chances early on but the Ferrari is better than ever and he really does look unstoppable again this year.

the best driver is in the best car, a hard combination to beat, is this hurting f1?

I would say so Tj,i remember watching it years ago and it was alot more competitive,now it's not so.

Schumacher has been dominant with the ferrari for quite a few years now and it does get considerably boring.Things need to be done about it but some of the other teams don't have the finance or resources to compete.

sad to hear, is there anything that can be done? would be hard to tell ferrari to stop spending so much money, but interest among other teams and fans will wane if there is no competition, sounds like a certain baseball team i could mention..lol

Well i'm not a great expert on the technology and developement of the car's/teams but i would say they are losing fan's hand over fist,alot of people i know who watched it don't even bother any more.Even if you take out Schumacher and he retires Ferrari would still be dominant.

it would be hard for new teams to come into the sport when they know that the only thing they could look forward to is having their cars embarresed on the track, ferrari has a long and storied history in f1, sad to see the sport in the state it is in