Qualifying: Kimi takes pole

In truth it always looked as though Kimi Raikkonen was best placed to start from the front after the McLaren man dominated free practice in his impressive new MP4-19B. The new car appears to have made a quantum leap since it placed sixth and seventh in its race debut in the French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours last weekend. In fact only Button's BAR could get anywhere near Raikkonen today.

"Since we ran the car for the first time in testing here at Silverstone it was better straight away," said Raikkonen. "Hopefully we'll start to get results now. This weekend has gone very well for us; the car is good to drive and well balanced. Hopefully, we'll have a good race tomorrow.

"I'm very happy for me and the team, because we've had a very hard start to the season. We know we can improve and make the car even quicker."

The threat of rain created a bizarre situation in pre-qualifying as many drivers crawled across the line to set the slowest time in pre-qualifying, thereby giving them the chance to run earlier in the qualifying hour. But Button simply went for it on the advice of his team who believed the track would remain dry. It turned out that BAR's weather prediction was right, but it wasn't enough to save the Englishman's pole attempt.

According to the data, Button had the best conditions of all in which to set his time, as gusts of wind played havoc with several other drivers' qualifying attempts. But having gone quickest of all in the first sector, and looking smooth throughout the lap, eventually the Englishman didn't have enough to beat Raikkonen's dynamite time.

"Strategy-wise we did well with the weather and it's good to be in the top three here," said Button afterwards. "Obviously we all want to be on pole, but I'm in a good position for the start of the race tomorrow. The balance of the car is better than yesterday. We're not exactly where we want to be, but it's improved.

"It was very windy out there. I had a good run through Becketts, but I found at other high-speed parts of the circuit the car was very different. I can only put that down to the wind. I don't think there was much left in the car."

Splitting Raikkonen and Button to get himself on the front row is Rubens Barrichello. Something of a Silverstone specialist, he has outqualified Ferrari team-mate Michael Schumacher four times out of five at the track and won the race of his life here last year. Barrichello's lap was awesome. Twitchy and on the limit, he pushed the Ferrari, which has been reluctant to perform this weekend, as fast as it was prepared to go on Bridgestone's tyres.

"Sector one was magic, I really enjoyed that, and then the car began to slide more towards the end of the lap and I lost time in sector three," said Barrichello. "A little bit more would have been enough, but I'm happy. In terms of race pace, we were quite good this morning. Only on the new tyres do we have a compromise. On the used set, the car gets better, which is promising for tomorrow."

When the Brazilian set his time, it was good enough for pole, and there was a possibility that despite both he and the world champion running off track in the pre-qualifying session (apparently deliberately...) that it might be a Ferrari all-front row. Certainly the team's traditional good fortune would have suggested an imminent downpour. But it stayed away and as Raikkonen's and Button's laps came in, so Schumacher dropped to fourth on the grid.

Jarno Trulli and Fernando Alonso were fifth and sixth fastest in their Renaults. The Italian's lap was just five thousandths slower than Schumacher's while Alonso will start 16th on the grid due to his 10-place penalty for an engine change this morning.

David Coulthard admitted that he just didn't hook up his lap. The Scot, who qualified seventh, knew that he didn't have the pace through the middle sector of the lap and was relying on a good run through Becketts. He didn't get it and ended up nearly a second slower than his McLaren team-mate.

Juan Pablo Montoya was one of those who had taken drastic action in pre-qualifying to make sure he ran early in qualifying. Adversely this worked against him as the wind picked up at the beginning of the session. His Williams team-mate Marc Gene had an untidy lap as side-winds buffeted the Spaniard's car through Copse and Becketts. Having seen this JPM took a cautious approach that cost him dearly and placed him seventh on the grid. Gene will start 12th.

Takuma Sato, curiously quiet in terms of pace all day could only manage the ninth quickest time although the Japanese BAR driver, who starts from eighth on the grid, was all smiles when it came to talking about race set-up... "I'm happy with our position considering our strategy. It should be a strong one tomorrow, but you know the British weather, anything can happen! We've done a lot of wet weather testing, and maybe tomorrow we will get the chance to show what we've done."

Jaguar's Mark Webber was one of the first out and initially was hoping to maximise the rain strategy, but sunk down the order to 10th fastest as the session went on. "I was very happy with that," he said midway through the session. "I had a bit of oversteer on the way into turns 11 and 12. Because it's windy it's difficult to judge your braking. There is some awesome rain either side of where the weather is coming from, so it's a bit of a lottery."

Felipe Massa will start from tenth on the grid. But the Sauber driver was the victim of mindless driving by Olivier Panis. Massa had looked good for a time well inside the top ten but as he came up to Abbey, he found Panis's Toyota crawling along on his slowdown lap, in the middle of the road. Massa had to take avoiding action as Panis realised, too late, that he was in the way. The Frenchman should start next up should he not be penalised for the incident.

Toyota's Cristiano da Matta and Jaguar's Christian Klien will occupy row seven ahead of Giorgio Pantano and Nick Heidfeld in the Jordans. Four drivers: Alonso, Gianmaria Bruni, Zsolt Baumgartner and Giancarlo Fisichella all were forced to change engines and will start the race in the order at the back.