Qualifying: Montoya takes pole

Montoya had pole for much of the session before he was deposed, first by team-mate Ralf Schumacher and then by Coulthard. Although his penultimate run was spoiled by the ambling Jordan of Takuma Sato, Montoya enjoyed a traffic-free final tour and lapped in a sensation 1m16.676s - eight tenths quicker than last year's pole.

"We did a couple of changes in qualifying and picked up masses of time towards the end," said Montoya. "The time was there from the beginning it was just a matter of putting it together. It was a big help. Right at the end is when you have got to push as hard as you can and I was very lucky about that."

Coulthard was disappointed to lose out on a second successive Monaco pole, but happy with the pace of his McLaren.

"The nature of the track suits the car a bit better," said Coulthard. "Obviously the Michelin tyres are working well. We always felt given the performance of the car pre-season, and with a little extra downforce, this track suited us really well."

As ever at Monaco in qualifying, traffic was a major issue. Michael Schumacher felt he was blocked by Montoya, braking almost to a halt in front of the Colombian at Loews. His Ferrari team-mate Rubens Barrichello was another to complain, as he claimed Coulthard got in his way at the chicane.

Schumacher had a more immediate problem in that something got in his left eye, and despite copious doses of eye drops, he had to suffer with both pain and impaired vision.

"I picked something up on my second run," said Michael. "I still haven't got it out."

The second McLaren of Kimi Raikkonen was sixth, although the Finn's harrowing weekend got worse when his car developed an engine problem on its out lap and he was forced to switch to another spare.

Renault was the big disappointment of the session. Jarno Trulli, who set the pace in free practice, was only seventh fastest when it mattered most, with team-mate Jenson Button right behind him.

"We've had a great weekend so far and we certainly expected more," said Renault's Pat Symonds. "Jarno had bad traffic, but the other guys pulled something out of the bag which we couldn't."

Toyota duo Mika Salo and Allan McNish rounded out the top 10, ahead of Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichella and Arrows's Heinz-Harald Frentzen. Felipe Massa outqualified his Sauber team-mate Nick Heidfeld, who was a lacklustre 17th, while Jacques Villeneuve pulled out a late flyer for 14th spot on the grid, four places ahead of team-mate Olivier Panis.

Alex Yoong faced a race against time to qualify when he embarrassingly spun his Minardi at the first corner of his opening flying lap. He just beat the 107 percent mark on his final flyer before spinning once again at Sainte Devote.

His team-mate Mark Webber easily outqualified both Jaguars, however, with Pedro de la Rosa and Eddie Irvine starting 20th and 21st respectively.

For full qualifying results, click here.