Schumacher fires up Ferrari

Fifty-one seconds before qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix ended, Michael Schumacher weaved and bobbed his Ferrari towards the finishing line. Moments later, the eruption of emotion and the blare of air horns from the Italian fans - the tifosi - provided a chorus to the bark of the red car's V10 engine as the only sub-1m 27s lap of the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari catapulted their beloved Ferrari on to pole position.

Moments later still, the cries echoed alarm as the world champion's car lurched into a clumsy spin in the Tamburello curve, the awkward angle of its left rear wheel telling its own embarrassing message of broken suspension. Two years ago when this corner was a flat-out blast at 190mph, this could have had serious consequences, but since Ayrton Senna's death in 1994 Tamburello has been heavily revised. Fortunately, Schumacher's incident simply ended with a harmless spin into the gravel bed.

He had done enough, for neither Damon Hill nor Jacques Villeneuve - pre- event favourites for the front row of the grid in their hitherto dominant Williams-Renaults - proved able to match his peerless best. Hill was three- tenths of a second shy of the 1min 27.105sec lap he had recorded earlier and which, until Schumacher's last great effort, had seemed set to earn him his 15th pole. Villeneuve got into a tank slapper in the final corner, losing momentum and also ending slower than his previous best by a similar margin. On his fastest lap, two small mistakes cost him time and left him just behind Hill. "My last lap was also good to the final corner," the Canadian said, "but you have to do the full lap."

Even though this is Ferrari's back yard, Schumacher's speed has been a major surprise, all the more so since he had expressed pessimism last week in Germany about his prospects on this bumpier track. And he denied accusations of spreading deliberate misinformation to psyche out his rivals. "I know what I said at the Nurburgring, and that was my full believing at that time. I thought Imola would be another Brazil for us, but my car was perfectly right from the beginning. It's the first time I am wrong in my expectations."

Part of the secret of Ferrari's upswing was a slightly revised engine which runs 500rpm higher and produces 10bhp more, allied to modified aerodynamics.

"We also made some big set-up changes, and the new engine that we put in last night has helped the car's driveability," Schumacher continued. "In fact, all yesterday and today we were quick on old tyres, and I expected a big improvement with a new set, but that didn't happen.

"Nevertheless, I was thinking that I could do better still and was preparing to do another lap. I was still pushing when the rear left suspension broke. A track rod just snapped; I don't know why. We have never experienced this before."

On Thursday Hill had been relaxed enough to do impromptu Elvis Presley impersonations, but he looked markedly less at ease after qualifying. He admitted that the speed of his old nemesis had struck a blow.

"We made some changes to the car which didn't have the effect we hoped for," he began, and to add insult to injury his words were all but drowned by the hysterical celebrations of the tifosi. "It's never over until the end of the session, and it was a real punch in the stomach to go by the pits and see that Michael had done a quicker lap time."

Behind them a mixed grid lines up, with David Coulthard finally finding the elusive balance he has been seeking all season to push his McLaren- Mercedes to within eight-tenths of fastest time and raising hopes in the team that once regarded victory as a foregone conclusion. After two seasons in the wilderness, McLaren finally seems to be making worthwhile progress, though Coulthard's partner Mika Hakkinen ended the day an angry 11th.

After a frank pep talk to his troops, Benetton leader Flavio Briatore saw Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger struggle for grip on their way to fifth and seventh-fastest times either side of Schumacher's team-mate Eddie Irvine, while Ken Tyrrell celebrated his 72nd birthday through Mika Salo stealing eighth place from the Jordan-Peugeot of Rubens Barrichello.

Hill, seeking solace on a disappointing day, pondered his prospects now that the world championship fight is really beginning. "A good start would be helpful," he said, deadpan. "You know, Ferrari is going well and Michael is motivated in front of the team's home crowd, which expects him to put in a strong performance. But I am super-motivated, too. I think it's going to be a titanic race."

Whether fate casts anyone in the roles of liner and iceberg remains to be seen.