Rubens rues Bus Stop error

Despite the soaking wet conditions, Barrichello had looked on course to demote Renault's Jarno Trulli, but he overshot the recently re-profiled Bus Stop chicane and lost a heap of time as a result. Barrichello needs to beat Schumacher on Sunday if he is to keep the drivers' championship alive.

"The last corner caught me out, even though I was feeling the tyres were losing a bit of their performance so I was being careful," said Barrichello. "I had oversteer and went into a slide, so I suppose to be in the top six having made a mistake is not too bad. A bit of a frustrating day, but I'm still optimistic for tomorrow."

Technical director Ross Brawn said: "Given the conditions, the fact we were still fighting for pole is a good result. I don't think being second on the grid tomorrow is such a problem as a racing line will not have formed on the track by the time the race starts. We have a good dry set-up and our indications are that we will have a dry race tomorrow.

"It's a shame Rubens had a little problem at the end of his lap, as it means he now has more work to do. In fact, we advised Michael to be cautious after seeing Raikkonen and Rubens nearly come off the track and so he rightly took it quite easy in the last sector. I think we will be in a strong position tomorrow as we did not compromise today and ran with a dry set-up."