Michael Schumacher was beaten to pole in Canada today by just 0.182 seconds after Juan Pablo Montoya put in a blistering lap halfway through the session. The Ferrari driver had just put in a dominant time to take provisional pole by over a second when Montoya came back out to set his impressive time.

Schumacher however was still pleased with his performance, and impressed with the performance he got from his Ferrari package. "It was an exciting session and with second place on the grid, I can be confident for the race," he remarked in a press release.

"Our engine was very good for qualifying today and now we will try to make the necessary changes to also have a little bit extra in race conditions for tomorrow.

"I am a little bit disappointed not to have been able to fight for pole right at the end. We might have been able to get pole, but if you look at my sector times, we were very close but just didn't get it together.

"On my third run, which was my fastest one, I lost some time in the first sector. I knew where I had lost it and why, so I was optimistic for my last run, but then came the rain. We knew there was a chance of rain but not when it could come exactly."

Rubens Barrichello had a more difficult session, but still ended up third despite losing time in morning practice when he slid into the wall on the outside of Turn Nine.

"I went off the track in the morning, losing precious time in terms of preparing the car for qualifying. This afternoon, I therefore tried to make up for lost time," he commented.

"Obviously the car could not be great in these circumstances, but all in all, I am happy with the result. On my third run, I hit a kerb and spun. Then, for my last run, the track was already too slippery.

"We had a great engine, which worked really well. We can be optimistic for tomorrow because I think we are in a strong position to get a good result."

Sporting director Jean Todt professed to be unsurprised by the result. "Today, things turned out as we predicted yesterday with a very close fight for the top positions," he said.

"We achieved our primary objective, in other words, getting both cars onto the front two rows. The complete F2002 package -car, engine and tyres - worked well. We can expect a very close fight with our main rivals tomorrow and I am convinced we can have a good race.

"Our aim is to bring home some important points for both championships. We know that this race is always tough in terms of reliability, especially for the engine and brakes."

Technical director Ross Brawn felt there was more performance in the car, but was looking forward to tomorrow's race. "Tomorrow should see a very interesting race. Our engine was really strong in qualifying which was a help," he added.

"The tyres seem to be holding up pretty well and I think the situation is similar to the one we experienced in Monaco. I am therefore quite optimistic for the race tomorrow.

"We knew it might rain towards the end of the session, but the track was not at its best at the start. This afternoon, we did not extract the car's full potential and could have done better, but generally it went well."