Qual: Awesome Alonso

The Renault ace was the 16th driver out on what was an ever-improving Magny-Cours circuit as the sun came out and raised the track temperatures. With four drivers before him slicing hundredths of a second off the pole time, it was only right that Alonso continued the trend.

And so he did with a scintillating 1m13.698s. But what separated the Spaniard from the rest of the crowd was his third and final sector that the four remaining drivers were simply unable to match - not even Ferrari's Schumacher.

"To be on pole in the home Grand Prix for the team is really nice," Alonso said. "It was a good lap. We suffered this morning with the set-up, and I pushed a bit more to find a better line in the [last] chicane, which is very complicated. The qualifying lap was fine, although I had two or three big moments. In Turn 8 I braked too late but, in the end, I didn't lose too much time.

Asked if he felt he was experiencing a change in fortune, he replied: "I believe so. Monaco was very bad luck and I had mechanical problems in Canada and Indy. I'm sure that the luck will come back here. Hopefully tomorrow the luck will change."

Schumacher had to settle for the runners-up slot despite setting the fastest overall time in the first two sectors. The German admitted that his final sector was simply not fast enough to catch the speedy Alonso.

"If you look at the sector times, we just weren't competitive in the last sector," he said. "I think there were various factors for that. We found a good baseline today so we're not overly worried. We're on the first row so we're going to be there tomorrow."

Schumacher may not be smiling, but the McLaren garage certainly were with Coulthard setting the third quickest time - the highest qualifying position for the team all season. The heavily revised McLaren - known as the MP4-19B - only began to show its promise in Saturday morning's two practice sessions.

That promise was then realised in the all-important final qualifying session with the Scot just over two tenths off Alonso's pace. Team-mate Kimi Raikkonen made a couple of small errors on his run and finished the day a disappointing ninth.

"We've got to be pretty pleased with the result of this qualifying session," Coulthard said. "I think, fuel level-wise, we're where we expected to be if we had the 19 here, so we've definitely taken a step forward. We have patched up some of the problems we had earlier in the season, so we can start building from here. The car is tricky to drive, but it's doing the lap times so I don't mind."

Jenson Button made it an all-British second row in the BAR-Honda after turning his lap around in the final sector. It was enough to grab provisional pole from Renault's Jarno Trulli, the Italian had to settle for fifth spot overall.

Fastest man in pre-qualifying, Juan Pablo Montoya, looked certain to repeat his feat in final qualifying according to the clock after the first two sectors. But, just like those before him, he lost out in the final sector losing almost half a second to Alonso. The Colombian will start Sunday's race a disappointing sixth.

Team-mate Marc Gene, who replaces the injured Ralf Schumacher, will be just behind Montoya on the grid with BAR-Honda's Takuma Sato to their right in seventh.

After missing pre-qualifying following a hydraulics failure, Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello was the first driver out in final qualifying and held pole for half of the session. That was until the big hitters came out and with one flying lap's practise behind them dispensed of the Brazilian with ease.

Toyota's Cristiano da Matta will be disappointed to have just missed out on the top 10 yet again after setting what initially seemed a competitive time in the TF104. It was only good enough for 11th while team-mate Olivier Panis was three places further down in 14th, the two Toyota's sandwiching the Jaguar duo of Mark Webber and Christian Klien in12th and 13th respectively.

Sauber's Giancarlo Fisichella and Felipe Massa slotted in behind the two Jaguars but ahead of the Jordan pair, Nick Heidfeld once again getting the edge over team-mate Giorgio Pantano.

It was business as usual at the tail end with Minardi's Gianmaria Bruni and Zsolt Baumgartner the slowest drivers of the session.