First qualifying: Barrichello beats Schu

The new 'extreme wet' rubber was the order of the day, as heavy rain had soaked the track surface. Second on track, Schumacher lapped in 1m31.919s, which was some 3secs faster than world championship leader Kimi Raikkonen had produced in his McLaren-Mercedes, even though Michael had run wide at the hairpin.

But Barrichello then topped that with a sensational 1m30.925s to hold the unofficial mantle of 'rainmaster'.

"I like wet conditions," said Rubens. "It's a case of avoiding the puddles and keeping the car steady. It's a lottery in terms of keeping the car in a straight line. It was a conservative lap, I thought. Hopefully this means we will have an advantage if it stays wet this weekend."

The wet conditions produced their fair share of heroes and zeroes. Nick Heidfeld took full advantage of his Bridgestone rubber to net the third fastest time in his Sauber, but perhaps the performance of the day was rookie Ralph Firman, who set an incredibly quick time to end the session fourth fastest for Jordan-Ford. To put this into context, his team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella, who was 18th, was almost 4secs slower.

Fernando Alonso was fifth fastest, and admitted: "I took the safe way. The conditions were too bad to take risks, but tomorrow will be a different story."

Raikkonen was a solid sixth, ahead of the second Sauber of Heinz-Harald Frentzen. David Coulthard was eighth, despite an off track excursion at Turn 3. Mark Webber was ninth for Jaguar, with Olivier Panis of Toyota rounding out the top 10.

The final hero was Jos Verstappen, who was 11th for Minardi. His team-mate Justin Wilson could also have been in that bracket but outbraked himself at the hairpin. Still, 13th wasn't bad for all his efforts.

And on to the zeroes. Williams had a disastrous session, with Juan Pablo Montoya locking up and going off at Turn 8. He recovered to set the 12th fastest time, but team-mate Ralf Schumacher was a totally lacklustre 15th.

Jenson Button was 14th on his return to the cockpit, while BAR team-mate Jacques Villeneuve spun away what looked like a good time at the final corner. He will be first on track tomorrow.

Behind tail enders Cristiano da Matta (Toyota), free practice star Antonio Pizzonia (Jaguar) and Fisichella came Renault's Jarno Trulli, who looked like he was driving a dumper truck rather than an F1 car. He slithered his way to 19th - over 10secs off the pole time.