Barrichello Takes Dominant Pole for the Italian GP

Rubens Barrichello claimed his second pole position of the season in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix on Saturday as Williams driver Juan Pablo Montoya prevented Ferrari from filling the front row of the grid in their home event.

Ferrari had looked set to record their fifth all-red front-row of the season with Barrichello's lap of 1:20.089 - the fastest-ever pole position time in Formula One - half-a-second quicker than teammate Michael Schumacher.

But Montoya, who had set the fastest-ever Formula One lap time in pre-qualifying, split the Ferrari pair with a lap of 1:20.620 with the final run of qualifying.

A mistake by Schumacher - who had recovered from a crash in testing last week to set the fastest lap of the weekend until the earlier pre-qualifying session - at the Parabolica corner ultimately proved costly as he finished 0.017 seconds slower than Montoya in third.

Renault's Fernando Alonso secured a place alongside Schumacher on the second row with an impressive lap, while Takuma Sato outpaced BAR-Honda teammate Jenson Button by 0.071 seconds as the two filled the third row.

McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen, winner at the last race in Belgium, could only claim seventh on the grid, edging out Williams' Antonio Pizzonia by 0.011 seconds. Renault's Jarno Trulli, who took pole position at Spa, could only manager ninth to give BAR the upper-hand in the on-going battle for second place in the Constructors' Championship.

Scot David Coulthard completed the top-ten with both McLaren's looking to be running heavy fuel loads

Ricardo Zonta set the early pace for Toyota before the top five teams took to the track and he edged out Jaguar's Mark Webber to claim eleventh place as the Toyota-Jaguar battle rumbled on. Sauber's Giancarlo Fisichella could only manage fifteenth place on the grid after his fifth-place finish in Belgium.

Pos Driver Team T1 T2 Time 1. (11) Barrichello Ferrari (B) 26.017 53.167 1:20.089 2. (20) Montoya Williams-BMW (M) 25.987 53.656 1:20.620 + 0.531 3. (12) M.Schumacher Ferrari (B) 25.927 53.290 1:20.637 + 0.548 4. (16) Alonso Renault (M) 26.094 53.686 1:20.645 + 0.556 5. (18) Sato BAR-Honda (M) 26.239 53.669 1:20.715 + 0.626 6. (17) Button BAR-Honda (M) 26.158 53.707 1:20.786 + 0.697 7. (13) Raikkonen McLaren-Mercedes (M) 25.964 53.668 1:20.877 + 0.788 8. (19) Pizzonia Williams-BMW (M) 26.035 53.881 1:20.888 + 0.799 9. (9) Trulli Renault (M) 26.006 53.637 1:21.027 + 0.938 10. (14) Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes (M) 26.053 53.653 1:21.049 + 0.960 11. (7) Zonta Toyota (M) 26.489 54.235 1:21.520 + 1.431 12. (8) Webber Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 26.560 54.459 1:21.602 + 1.513 13. (5) Panis Toyota (M) 26.569 54.359 1:21.841 + 1.752 14. (6) Klien Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 26.612 54.612 1:21.989 + 1.900 15. (15) Fisichella Sauber-Petronas (B) 26.350 54.631 1:22.239 + 2.150 16. (10) Massa Sauber-Petronas (B) 26.995 54.945 1:22.287 + 2.198 17. (1) Heidfeld Jordan-Ford (B) 26.682 54.736 1:22.301 + 2.212 18. (4) Pantano Jordan-Ford (B) 26.619 55.090 1:23.239 + 3.150 19. (2) Baumgartner Minardi-Cosworth (B) 26.860 56.056 1:24.808 + 4.719 20. (3) Bruni Minardi-Cosworth (B) 27.127 56.236 1:24.940 + 4.851 All timing unofficial