Ferrari driver first in Austria

? Rubens Barrichello won the pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix on Saturday, and Ferrari teammate Michael Schumacher had his worst qualifying of the season, settling for third.

Barrichello turned a lap of 1 minute, 8.082 seconds on the 2.688-mile circuit to win his second pole of the year.

Ralf Schumacher, the younger brother of Michael, qualified second at 1:08.364 in his BMW-Williams.

Four-time world champion and points leader Michael Schumacher will start from the second row after a time of 1:08.704. Schumacher, who has had three poles and two seconds in qualifying, has won four of five races this season.

Schumacher, who leads the drivers’ standings by 21 points over Juan Pablo Montoya (44-23), has never won on the Austrian circuit.

Montoya, using the spare BMW-Williams, was fourth in 1:09.118.

Ferrari cars dominated the practice, with Barrichello turning the quickest lap on Friday, and Schumacher posting the fastest lap in the morning session before the qualifying.

“In Imola and Barcelona, it was close between us and Michael beat me,” Barrichello said. “This time, I said to myself, ‘not today’ and tried even harder.

“At the moment, we are such a good team that if one of us is not on the pole the other should be able to do it.”

Both Ferrari drivers had several spins off the course, and Schumacher finished the qualifying in the spare car.

Barrichello, who has one victory and five career poles, nearly crashed into the slow Toyota of Mika Salo of Finland in his last lap. He had to swerve hard and ended up in the gravel.

“I had to,” Barrichello said. “I was doing 300 and I thought there would be a big crash. There was a lot of traffic.”