Raikkonen leads all-Ferrari front row

The McLarens took third and fourth, with Fernando Alonso ahead of Lewis Hamilton.

Massa had escaped a scare in Q1 when a problem with the rear of his car meant he only left the Ferrari garage with four minutes of the session to spare. But he easily proceeded through to Q2 and then Q3, where he beat Raikkonen's provisional pole time on his final run.

Raikkonen then responded with a 1:45.994 lap, usurping Massa by 0.017 seconds.

Alonso lost his first Q3 flying lap to a spin at Rivage. But his next run took him to third, only 0.097 seconds slower than Raikkonen, with Hamilton a further four tenths of a second adrift on the outside of row two.

BMW's Robert Kubica was fifth fastest but will lose ten places having required an engine change before the session.

That will elevate Williams' Nico Rosberg to fifth, ahead of Kubica's teammate Nick Heidfeld.

Mark Webber took eighth, despite leaving the pitlane too late to complete a second flying lap in Q2. Fortunately for the Red Bull driver, his first run had been sufficient for eighth in the session.

The final two top ten spots went to Toyota's Jarno Trulli and Renault's Heikki Kovalainen.

Giancarlo Fisichella missed the top ten cut for the second time in a week, ending up 11th, ahead of Ralf Schumacher and David Coulthard.

Jenson Button managed to get more speed out of the Honda than teammate Rubens Barrichello throughout practice, and the pattern continued into qualifying, as Button took 14th while Barrichello struggled to 18th.

Toro Rosso and Spyker had both set promising times in practice, but only Vitantonio Liuzzi managed to get through to Q2. He beat Williams' Alex Wurz to 15th, while teammate Sebastian Vettel was just 0.015 seconds away from reaching the second session but had to settle for 17th.

Adrian Sutil moved up to 12th in the closing moments of Q1, before being pushed back down to 20th as others improved. Teammate Sakon Yamamoto was at the bottom of the timesheets again, with the struggling Super Aguris of Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson taking 19th and 21st.