Raikkonen pips Schumacher to Italy pole

His effort, clocked at 1:21.484, enabled him to outpace Ferrari's seven-time champion Michael Schumacher by just 0.002 with only a few seconds of the session remaining.

It meant an 11th pole of his career for the Finn, who is apparently bound for Ferrari in 2007, and pushed the Italian squad out of pole position for their home race at the Autodromo Nazionale.

German Nick Heidfeld was third fastest behind Schumacher for BMW Sauber ahead of Brazilian Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari. Defending world champion Fernando Alonso ended up fifth on the grid in his Renault after a puncture wrecked his hopes in the final third session.

Briton Jenson Button was sixth for Honda, Robert Kubica seventh for BMW, and Italian Giancarlo Fisichella was eighth in the second Renault.

Alonso's puncture - a high speed tyre failure on his right rear wheel - upset his hopes, but not completely end them as he brought the car back to the pits and rejoined the fray in an exciting final session.

The final session was only a few minutes old when drama erupted. Alonso, on a flying lap, suffered a right rear tyre failure.

After a bright and clear morning, qualifying began with air temperatures of 28 degrees Celsius and a track temperature of 42 degrees. Most of the seats in the main stand opposite the pits were taken, but there were still enough gaps to be of concern to the promoters.

A red flag after five minutes caused an eight-minute delay. This was caused by a tyre failure on the left rear wheel of Japanese Sakon Yamamoto's Super Aguri Honda, which left a stream of pieces of debris on the circuit. The session was stopped and restarted eight minutes later after the debris had been collected off the track.

At that stage, veteran Briton David Coulthard topped the times in his Red Bull Ferrari ahead of Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi in his Toro Rosso Cosworth, but both Michael Schumacher and Alonso remained in their garages.

After the restart, Brazilian Massa, the fastest man in the morning session and winner of his maiden Grand Prix in Istanbul two weeks ago, went to the top for Ferrari ahead of Pedro de la Rosa in a McLaren Mercedes-Benz.

Soon after this, Schumacher, seeking to win and rekindle his hopes of an eighth title, was out on the track to take over at the top ahead of fellow-German Heidfeld, with Kimi Raikkonen third for McLaren.

As the first mini-session ended, Alonso emerged and the Spaniard swiftly delivered the second-best time behind Schumacher while Austrian Christian Klien in a Red Bull Ferrari went off at the Variante della Roggia.

This first part saw the elimination of Tonio Liuzzi, Dutchman Christijan Albers of Midland, Australian Mark Webber in his Williams, Portugal's Tiago Monteiro in the second Midland and the two Aguri drivers, Yamamoto and fellow-Japanese Takuma Sato.

The second session started promptly and Alonso was out swiftly to set a fast time of 1:21.526. Schumacher followed almost immediately, but was unable to better his rival and after the first runs it was Alonso, Kubica and Nick who led.

Massa, however, made light work of their efforts by clocking a 1:21.225 to take command and dominate the closure of the second session ahead of Kubica, Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher. Heidfeld was fifth and Alonso sixth.

The eliminated six were Italian Jarno Trulli, for Toyota, Germany's Nico Rosberg in his Williams, Ralf Schumacher in his Toyota, Coulthard, American Scott Speed in his Toro Rosso and Klien.