Qualifying: Schumacher takes dominant pole

McLaren has scored a one-two at the Circuit de Catalunya for the last three years, but look set to be stopped on Sunday by a world champion in top form. Schumacher played his usual waiting game and let Coulthard set a thoroughly respectable 1m18.635s, then with half of the session gone the German took to the track for his first flying lap and immediately went 0.4s faster.

And as if that wasn't enough, the Ferrari ace went out again 15 minutes later and went even faster, putting pole position firmly out of McLaren's reach.

Coulthard looked set to hold onto second place, but was pipped by Hakkinen in the dying seconds as the Finn, who looked to be struggling for pace, put in a mammoth effort to set a time 1m18.286s, which while not good enough to upset Schumacher demoted DC down to third.

"My first run was a good baseline," said Coulthard. "Then I lost my second run because of a Sauber. I think where Michael was was achievable, but ultimately that's not what happened and this is where I ended up."

Rubens Barrichello, who has been almost half a second behind his illustirous Ferrari team mate so far this weekend, finished fourth to maintain the deadlock of Formula 1's Big Guns at the top.

The Spanish time sheets have been dominated by Bridgestone runners thus far and the highest Michelion runner was always likely to be a Williams, but San Marino Grand Prix winner Ralf Schumacher did not expect it to be as high as fifth. The Grove-based team has struggled with its traction control system to the extent that Schuey Jr even decided to turn it off during the morning's free practice sessions.

"I said before we came here that we would have problems," said Schumacher Jr, "and we do, but I am surprised. We have tyre problems and Michelin have been caught out and we can't even use our traction control system, which doesn't help."

Jarno Trulli had no such problems and finished an encouraging sixth ahead of Honda stable mate Jacques Villeneuve. As the battle between Jordan and British American Racing gathers speed, the 1997 world champ saved some face for the BAR squad by splitting the two Jordans and demoting Heinz-Harald Frentzen to eighth late in the session.

The sensational Sauber pairing of Kimi Raikonen and Nick Heidfeld continued to impress by rounding out the top 10 with the former just slightly ahead.

Despite finishing behind his team mate, Heidfeld was mightily impressive. The young German had to sit and watch Raikkonen climb up the time sheets while mechanics fitted his seat to the spare C20 due to a gearbox problem with his race car. He took to the track with just 15 minutes to go without having set a time.

Juan Pablo Montoya spent much of the session struggling with similar problems to his Williams team mate and finished 12th behind Olivier Panis in the second BAR.

Eddie Irvine used pole man Schumacher to get a tow on the long pit straight to set his fastest time. The Ulsterman finished 13th just one place ahead of former Jaguar team mate Luciano Burti who put in a mammoth effort to take 14th place in his first outing for the Prost team, ahead of Jean Alesi in 15th.

For Qualifying Results click here.