McLaren 'not compromised' in qualifying

David Coulthard looked particularly pleased with his flying lap, having brought back the balance of his car just as the tweaking went too far.

"A reasonably tidy qualifying lap - the best I have done so far this year," he said. "I wasn't comfortable with the balance of the car during the 15-minute warm-up, so we changed it back to how we ran it during this morning's practice and everything felt fine.

"Now we will see what happens tomorrow. The new rules make it difficult to know the competitiveness of the other teams."

Both McLaren drivers picked up fastest sector times in pursuit of pole, but at different ends of the track. DC took the first sector and Kimi the last, going sixth and seventh fastest in the middle - Jarno Trulli taking the honours there. With the team-mates so evenly matched, the smallest of errors consigned Kimi to fourth.

"My qualifying lap was not perfect but fourth place is acceptable taking into account how close the competition is," said Raikkonen. "I got the car a little bit sideways at Turn Nine, which lost me a small amount of time, but I think we are looking reasonably strong for the race."