Scheider snatches late pole at Mugello

Prior to the championship leader's final lap, the top four runners were covered by less than one tenth of a second, but Scheider then stunned his rivals by going three tenths of a second quicker than Jamie Green.

Scheider has now taken a hat-trick of pole positions, while Audis have now taken pole for eight consecutive races.

Green became the first driver to put a Mercedes on the front row this season with his best lap, while Tom Kristensen and Mattias Ekstrom complete the second row.

Paul di Resta ended up fifth just ahead of Bruno Spengler, who set the same time as Bernd Schneider in seventh.

Markus Winkelhock was the only driver of an older car to get through to the final segment of qualifying, but the Audi driver had to settle for eighth in the end.

Three more 2007 Audis will line up behind him on the grid, with Alexandre Premat, Mike Rockenfeller and Oliver Jarvis all missing the cut in the second session. All three, however, outperformed the 2008 Audi of Martin Tomczyk, who was one of several drivers to run slightly off track on his final lap.

Behind the group of Audis, Ralf Schumacher was the highest-placed driver of a one-year-old Mercedes in 13th, just ahead of his Mucke Motorsport teammate Maro Engel. Both outqualified former champion Gary Paffett, who was eliminated in the first segment of qualifying after going off on his final flying lap.

Pos Driver              Car          Time         Gap
 1. Timo Scheider       Audi         1:43.079         
 2. Jamie Green         Mercedes     1:43.401  +0.322 
 3. Tom Kristensen      Audi         1:43.420  +0.341 
 4. Mattias Ekstrom     Audi         1:43.472  +0.393 
 5. Paul Di Resta       Mercedes     1:43.487  +0.408 
 6. Bruno Spengler      Mercedes     1:43.579  +0.500 
 7. Bernd Schneider     Mercedes     1:43.579  +0.500 
 8. Markus Winkelhock   Audi         1:44.025  +0.946 
 9. Alexandre Premat    Audi         1:43.927  +0.848 
10. Mike Rockenfeller   Audi         1:43.997  +0.918 
11. Oliver Jarvis       Audi         1:44.031  +0.952 
12. Martin Tomczyk      Audi         1:44.154  +1.075 
13. Ralf Schumacher     Mercedes     1:44.735  +1.656 
14. Maro Engel          Mercedes     1:45.357  +2.278 
15. Gary Paffett        Mercedes     1:44.914  +1.835 
16. Christijan Albers   Audi         1:44.986  +1.907 
17. Mathias Lauda       Mercedes     1:45.644  +2.565 
18. Katherine Legge     Audi         1:46.086  +3.007 
19. Susie Stoddart      Mercedes     1:46.258  +3.179