Schumacher's time of 1.16.364 only required him to use nine of his twelve allotted laps. "I enjoyed this session and the fight with Rubens. It was a challenge, especially as he was quicker on the first two runs," he said in a press release. "I looked at his sector and corner times to see where I could improve.

"Sometimes you think you are going flat out and your team mate shows you that you are not. We made some changes to the car, which brought it closer to Rubens's set-up, which seemed to work better. I made mistakes on my first two runs, but on the final one I got it right and the wind conditions had also improved by then."

Rubens Barrichello was only three tenths of a second slower to take second. "Of course, just as in Imola, I would prefer to have stayed on pole, but it was a fair fight with Michael and wonderful to be pushing one another like that," he commented. "My second run was not so good, because someone had put some dirt on the track at Turn 9

"Then the wind, which had been gusting, seemed to get better, so I should have improved on the last run. I chose to go a little bit early rather than right at the end, but on my "out" lap, I went a bit too quick, trying to overtake two other cars and had to back off. This meant the tyre temperatures were not quite right and the car felt strange at the start of the flying lap.

"Once again, I will be starting from the dirty side of the track, so I hope the F3000 cars put a lot of rubber down this afternoon! But, I am very confident for the race and the car is going the way I like. I will definitely get more poles this year."

Technical director Ross Brawn praised the Brazilian's performances this year. "Rubens is getting more confident with the new car and both our drivers enjoy the competition between themselves," he stated. "It's great to have both our cars on the frontrow again. We are quite happy with the car and tyres, but as for tomorrow, we will have towait and see what strategy our opponents will adopt.

Sporting director Jean Todt was thrilled with the result. "It was a dream qualifying session. On our first run, we got both cars onto the provisional front row and it stayed that way to the end of the hour!" he exclaimed. "We have now reached pole number 152 in Ferrari's history, the 36th with Michael, who put on an exceptional performance today.

"Rubens also did a great job, being quickest for much of the session. We have also saved one set of tyres for each driver, which could prove important in tomorrow's race. I have to say, this is the result we had expected since the start of the weekend. We have an excellent car and engine, supported by very good Bridgestone tyres. Having said all that, we know the race will be long and hard and the key to success will be reliability. We are confident we can have a good race."