Alonso Takes First Pole of the Year in France

Spaniard Fernando Alonso put Renault on pole position for their home race when he outpaced World Champion Michael Schumacher in Saturday's qualifying for Sunday's French Grand Prix to claim the third top grid spot of his career.

Alonso, who joined the Renault race team last year, finished with a time of 1:13.698 to beat Schumacher by 0.273 seconds after the German driver failed to better his rival's time.

Schumacher's teammate Rubens Barrichello suffered a disappointing session and will start from 10th place after running early in the session having struggled with a hydraulics problem during the morning.

Scot David Coulthard proved the new McLaren-Mercedes car has pushed the team up the grid when he claimed third place ­ beating his previous best qualifying performance of the season by six places.

His Finnish teammate Kimi Raikkonen did not fare so well and finished ninth fastest, 0.648 seconds off Alonso's session-leading pace, after making a mistake on his run.

Jenson Button made it an all-British second row with fourth for BAR-Honda and his teammate Takuma Sato finished seventh behind the second Renault of Italian Jarno Trulli and the lead Williams-BMW of Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya.

Montoya had led the pre-qualifying session but failed to stay on the pace and he finished just one tenth of a second ahead of teammate Marc Gene, replacing the injured Ralf Schumacher, in eighth.

Barrichello was out first after missing the pre-qualifying session while his team re-built the hydraulic system on his F2004 machine and he set a respectable time of 1:14.478.

The first man to come close to the Brazilian's time was Australian Mark Webber, who put his Jaguar just 0.320 seconds back with his Austrian teammate Christian Klien a further two tenths back.

Brazilian Cristiano da Matta, of Toyota, then bettered Webber's time before Gene overhauled Barrichello to move to the front. But Sato, Trulli and Button all passed him before the final five drivers hit the track.

Pos Driver Team T1 T2 Time 1. (16) Alonso Renault (M) 24.017 49.658 1:13.698 2. (19) M.Schumacher Ferrari (B) 23.816 49.533 1:13.971 + 0.273 3. (18) Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes (M) 23.975 49.795 1:13.987 + 0.289 4. (15) Button BAR-Honda (M) 24.069 49.869 1:13.995 + 0.297 5. (14) Trulli Renault (M) 24.052 49.790 1:14.070 + 0.372 6. (20) Montoya Williams-BMW (M) 23.834 49.586 1:14.172 + 0.474 7. (13) Sato BAR-Honda (M) 23.992 49.951 1:14.240 + 0.542 8. (12) Gene Williams-BMW (M) 23.976 49.744 1:14.275 + 0.577 9. (17) Raikkonen McLaren-Mercedes (M) 24.291 50.256 1:14.346 + 0.648 10. (1) Barrichello Ferrari (B) 24.008 49.844 1:14.478 + 0.780 11. (11) da Matta Toyota (M) 24.189 50.188 1:14.553 + 0.855 12. (7) Webber Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 24.288 50.302 1:14.798 + 1.100 13. (8) Klien Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 24.354 50.576 1:15.065 + 1.367 14. (10) Panis Toyota (M) 24.237 50.390 1:15.130 + 1.432 15. (6) Fisichella Sauber-Petronas (B) 24.728 51.095 1:16.177 + 2.479 16. (9) Massa Sauber-Petronas (B) 24.543 51.073 1:16.200 + 2.502 17. (4) Heidfeld Jordan-Ford (B) 24.701 51.533 1:16.807 + 3.109 18. (5) Pantano Jordan-Ford (B) 25.141 52.040 1:17.462 + 3.764 19. (3) Bruni Minardi-Cosworth (B) 25.124 52.255 1:17.913 + 4.215 20. (2) Baumgartner Minardi-Cosworth (B) 25.064 52.336 1:18.247 + 4.549 All timing unofficial