Qual: Trulli denies Schuey

It was the first wet qualifying session of the season challenging the teams not only with tyre choice, but set-up options for Sunday's race. As the forecasts stand, Sunday's race will supposedly be dry. With the cars stored in parc ferme this evening, teams opted to use a dry set-up on their cars despite the heavy rain in qualifying today (Saturday).

With the rain having fallen at the Belgian circuit pretty much since Friday afternoon, though, tyre choice for the first 10 drivers was a no-brainer for the teams concerned with all drivers plumping for extreme wets. Jaguar's Mark Webber emerged the quickest in the early conditions with a time of 1m58.729s, knocking the Toyota of Olivier Panis off the top spot, despite it being a less than perfect lap.

"I turned in a bit too early for Eau Rouge and got on the white line, so I had to lift a little," Webber said. "The rest of the lap was good. Trying to find grip out there was not easy, and the Bus Stop was especially slippy."

Antonio Pizzonia could have toppled the Australian in the Williams if he hadn't had such a scrappy lap. The Brazilian ran wide at La Source and never really got into his lap from there and slipped to fourth. Likewise, BAR-Honda's Takuma Sato was capable of dethroning Webber, but the Japanese driver suffered huge understeer and could only manage the fifth quickest lap at the time.

"Although the rain had stopped, the wet tyre just did not have the grip at all," said Sato. "It was the worst conditions for the tyre because it simply overheated."

Team-mate Jenson Button didn't fare much better and, while setting the quickest time in the first sector, lost his advantage by running wide into Les Combes with a BAR that simply lacked any mechanical grip. "We made a mistake, it was quite obvious," he grumbled. "We should have got for wets [intermediates] and not the extreme wets. It's disappointing."

As the track conditions improved and the rain held off, along came Trulli, whose brave gamble to run on the intermediate Michelin tyres paid dividends as he slashed away at Webber's effort. Up by half a second in the first sector, 1.6s in the second and finally a massive 2.4s in the final sector easily handed Trulli the top spot and gave a clear indication to the remaining teams which direction to take.

Team-mate Alonso duly went out on the intermediates and while up in the first sector he hit the kerb and slid sideways at the corner with no name in the second sector losing time to Trulli. Halfway through the lap and the rain begin its descent once again, not enough for McLaren's David Coulthard, the next man out, to change back to the full wets again. The Scot was 1.7s off the pace of Trulli as the infamous Spa rain got heavier.

It was too late for Juan Pablo Montoya, though, who had already set out on his run in the intermediates. It proved costly as the FW26 slid around the circuit and the Colombian dropped to sixth (later to become 11th).

"You have to take chances, but it started to rain on my out lap and that killed my chances," shrugged Montoya. "We went for intermediates and it killed our grip. I'm a bit disappointed. It's just bad luck, and that's part of this qualifying system."

With all but one - McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen - of the Michelin runners already gone, it was time for the Bridgestone-shod Saubers and Ferraris to prove their mettle in the teeming rain. Disappointingly, the Saubers of Giancarlo Fisichella and Felipe Massa failed to make their mark with Fisi slotting into fourth and Massa sixth.

Unsurprisingly, Raikkonen reverted to the full wets for his effort, unfortunately the sensors failed to pick up his times throughout his lap so the Finn's pace on his flying lap will remain unknown. If there had been any chance for pole, the McLaren driver blew it at the Bus Stop when he ran too deep and lost bags of time. He dropped to a dismal eighth.

Despite the heavens being open as far as possible, Ferrari's Barrichello breezed around the drenched circuit as spectators watched in awe as the F2004 clung to the Spa track. The Brazilian, who was easily on course for provisional pole, then ran wide at the Bus Stop chicane, just as Raikkonen had done, putting him fifth as well as in Jean Todt's bad books.

It seemed a certainty then that Schumacher - who can take his seventh world title at Spa this weekend - would take his 62nd career pole. It was close at the first sector, with just four thousandths of a second separating him and Trulli. By the second though Schuey was up by three-tenths on the Italian.

Having seen Raikkonen go wide at the Bus Stop and heard that his team-mate had done the same, the German was cautious through the final chicane. Too cautious it proved, though, for Schumacher crossed the line seventh-hundredths of a second adrift of Trulli in second spot.

"It was a gamble to take the intermediates tyres, which worked out very well," Trulli said. "The decision came just a few seconds before I had to leave the pits, so the mechanics did a very good job. The conditions were really difficult, it was only just the right time to take those tyres. I'm very happy with the result."

Schumacher was pleased to be on the front row, but knows he'll have his hands full keeping either of the strong-starting Renaults behind him.

"That's the way it is," he said. "It's a lottery in a way. Just 10 minutes from the end we get this extra splash of rain which wasn't supposed to be. Anyway, we are in the first row and in the conditions I think we can be quite happy. We have a big challenge in front of us tomorrow, and we know that both of the [Renault] guys are good starters, so we hope that our situation can compete.

"My lap wasn't so fantastic. I struggled a little bit at the top of the hill, getting a bit sideways into Turn 5. I lost a couple of tenths there and it got a bit tricky towards the end. I didn't have the traction out of the last corner that the other guys had. It was a nice lap."

Alonso was knocked down to third but the Spanaird is hoping to move up the order before the first corner in Sunday's race.

"It was very difficult in those conditions, and it's a shame when they are not the same for everyone," he said. "It was a good lap considering I took the risk to run on unfamiliar tyres. It will be very interesting tomorrow, and we have the chance to be 1-2 into the first corner. It was a very difficult day today, so to be in the top three was a fantastic result."

McLaren's Coulthard ended up fourth after his lucky run while Fisichella squeezed in front of Barrichello. Webber's earlier run was good enough for seventh. Massa rounded out the top eight.

Toyota's Olivier Panis was ninth, but team-mate Ricardo Zonta will line up last on the grid for Sunday's race. The Brazilian damaged his car in pre-qualifying and failed to set a time, this gave his mechanics just minutes to repair his car for the final session. But damage to his front aero package and rear wing remained giving him no choice but to drive cautiously on his lap.