Imola qualifying: DC ends Schuey pole streak

Amazingly, Schumacher starts only fourth in Imola, with the Ferrari man also bettered by DC's team mate Mika Hakkinen and his brother Ralf's Williams-BMW.

In a frenetic final two minutes of the session, Coulthard took his McLaren-Mercedes round in 1m23.054s, a full 1.66s faster than the 2000 pole time, thanks to the ongoing tyre war between Michelin and McLaren's rubber-supplier Bridgestone.

Laps speeds had been expected to be faster than 2000, but after cold and damp conditions for most of the previous sessions had prevented the teams from getting close to the previous year's benchmark, the margin came as something of a surprise. In the end, 10 cars bettered the 2000 mark - eight of those on Bridgestones.

Schumacher missed out on the chance to equal Ayrton Senna's record of eight poles in a row, but if he was disappointed, his team mate Rubens Barrichello had to be gutted after qualifying only sixth on Ferrari's home territory.

Jarno Trulli was fifth for Jordan, the best of the Honda-powered cars, with Juan Pablo Montoya's Michelin-shod Williams, Olivier Panis's BAR-Honda, Heinz-harald Frentzen in the second of the Jordans and Kimi Raikkonen in the highest-placed Sauber-Petronas.

With clouds gathering over the Imola track in the minutes before the session started, every driver elected to set an early banker time. After 25 minutes of action, Schumacher's Ferrari held the provisional pole with a 1m23.674s lap.

But after a regroup and a bit of a headscratch, and with 20 minutes to go, most ventured out again. With 13 minutes to go, Hakkinen raised the bar to 1m22.381s, but it was a final scramble that saw the final make-up of the grid take shape.

Trulli blasted in the second fastest time with just seconds to go, but DC then set his pole time, with Schumacher Sr, Hakkinen and Schumacher Jr all zapping through in quick succession. Strangely, it was only the Ferrari man who failed to better his time.

In the battle at the back of the grid, Tarso Marques' Minardi starts 22nd and last, just behind Jenson Button's Benetton-Renault and the Prost-Acer of Gaston Mazzacane. It still seems odd to be talking about Button in the same breath as journeymen Marques and Mazzacane, but that's the way of it at the moment.

For full qualifying results click here.