page_title: 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix
section_title: Practice, qualifying and warm-up sessions
hierarchical_section_title: 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix / Practice, qualifying and warm-up sessions
caption_attribution_description: English: Rubens Barrichello, Indianapolis, 2002
context_page_description: The 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 6 April 2003 at Autódromo José Carlos Pace. It was attended by 120,000 spectators. It was the third round of the 2003 Formula One World Championship, the 32nd Brazilian Grand Prix and the 700th Formula One World Championship race.
  The race was scheduled to run for 71 laps, but was stopped on lap 56 after two major crashes blocked the circuit. Due to confusion about the timing of the red flag, the win was initially awarded to Kimi Räikkönen of McLaren, with Giancarlo Fisichella of Jordan in second and Fernando Alonso of Renault in third. However, following a post-race appeal by the Jordan team, eventually heard in court, it was established that Fisichella was leading when the race results were declared, and he was awarded the win with Räikkönen demoted to second. Alonso remained in third place; he had missed the podium ceremony at the time as he was receiving medical attention. The race, which was Jordan's final victory, was the team's 200th Grand Prix.
context_section_description: Three practice sessions were held before the Sunday race: one 60-minute session on Friday morning and two 45-minute sessions on Saturday morning. In the first practice session, held in torrential weather conditions and saw four drivers record no lap times, Michael Schumacher was quickest with a lap of 1 minute and 28.060 seconds, followed by Coulthard, British American Racing (BAR) driver Jenson Button, Trulli, Montoya, Barrichello, the Toyota pair of Olivier Panis and Cristiano da Matta, Fisichella and Heinz-Harald Frentzen of Sauber. Seconds after Räikkönen exited the pit lane, he lost control of his vehicle into the Reta Oposta straight and spun onto some grass. He narrowly avoided a collision with a barrier to his left. With fifteen minutes to go, Pizzonia crashed heavily leaving the Curva do Sol turn and struck the barriers on both sides of the circuit on his first timed lap, temporarily stopping the session so that his Jaguar car could be removed from the track. After the session restarted, Alonso slid on the wet track and made minor contact against a wall at the Senna S chicane.
  The torrential rain observed in the first session prompted several drivers to express concerns they would lose control of their vehicles and crash in those conditions. Around twenty minutes before the first qualifying session began, Coulthard, a senior member of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association, Trulli and Michael Schumacher wrote a petition mandating the FIA cancel the session if there was no improvement in the track conditions. The petition was signed by a majority of drivers; it was later disregarded after it was unable to be sent to everyone in time and race officials had deemed the circuit safe to drive on after the rain tapered off before qualifying commenced. Jacques Villeneuve of BAR said the petition was detrimental to Formula One, "What would it bring to Formula One for us not to go and qualify? People would think that we are just a bunch of sissies. We can't do that. We are paid a whole lot of money and it would be an insult to the fans."
  Qualifying was split into two one-hour sessions; the first was held on Friday afternoon, and the second on Saturday afternoon. The first session's starting order was determined by the World Drivers' Championship order (first to last) and the second was run in reverse of the first session times (slowest to fastest). Each competitor was limited to one lap per session and the starting order was determined by the second session's fastest times. The level of standing water fluctuated during the session. Webber took provisional pole position on a drying track with a 1 minute and 23.249 seconds lap. He was 0.138 seconds faster than Barrichello in second, who had pole until Webber's lap. Räikkönen, the first driver to set a lap, finished the session third and his teammate Coulthard was fourth after a driver error at Bico de Pato corner. Michael Schumacher aquaplaned shortly after he exited the pit lane and took fifth. Panis' Toyota was not setup for the wet-weather conditions and took sixth. Villeneuve was seventh; Pizzonia drove the spare Jaguar and took eighth notwithstanding him aquaplaning on the start/finish straight.
  Alonso elected to be circumspect en route to ninth, as Frentzen in tenth reported an adequate car balance. An incorrect setup put Da Matta 11th. The wet-weather conditions restricted Trulli to 12th and an unbalanced car in corners taken at a slow speed left Ralf Schumacher in 13th. An oversteer and lack of grip restricted Fisichella to 14th as Verstappen extracted additional performance from his car to finish in 15th. Heidfeld was circumspect through the Arquibancdas turn en route to 16th. Montoya in 17th lost control of the rear of his Williams under braking and went onto a concrete run-off area at Ferradura corner. Firman in 18th drove with the rear of Jordan's spare car attached to his race vehicle. Wilson avoided a spin on the start/finish straight and was 19th. Button was the only driver not to set a lap time: he had a sudden oversteer when he ran onto a damp white line denot
caption: Rubens Barrichello (pictured in 2002) took the seventh pole position of his career in the second qualifying session
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