Schumacher recovers from mistake

By the time Schumacher attempted his qualifying run, several cars had run off the circuit and made the circuit increasingly dirty. But after getting sideways at Turn Two the Ferrari driver proceeded to bang in the fastest times of the session for sectors two and three to set a remarkable pole position and deny championship leader Kimi Raikkonen his first top spot.

"At the second corner I had a little wobble but I did not lose too much time because I was able to catch it before the apex and so I did not run off the track and lose traction," said Schumacher. "After that I had a good run.

"My car has been perfectly balanced all weekend since Friday. I am very happy with this pole position. Seeing how close the times were this result is very satisfying."

Ferrari's technical director Ross Brawn admitted that he thought the world champion had blown it when he made that mistake at Turn Two: "Michael made a mistake and we did not think he had a chance, but he got a fantastic result.

"It was a very tough session. With the new rules you have to find the balance between qualifying performance and race strategy. Being on pole by a few hundredths of a second means that objective has been reached."