Villeneuve Surprised by Performance

The Canadian got caught up in the Juan Pablo Montoya/Ralf Schumacher incident in free practice and ran into the back of David Coulthard - damaging his Sauber.

But despite that problem, the former World Champion put in his most convincing qualifying performance of the season to edge out his teammate Felipe Massa by three positions.

"That was better than I expected," said Villeneuve "To begin with we changed the car quite a lot since Thursday, but otherwise we left the set-up alone as the day progressed.

"The balance was neutral, and it was just a matter of doing the laps and getting used to the car and the tyres, and then taking some risks. It was a hard lap but I didn't make any mistakes, so I'm happy so far."

Massa complained of a lack of grip during his lap, and claimed that he was not willing to risk too much with the Monaco barriers always willing to punish mistakes hard.

"I couldn't run a fast lap with new tyres until I went out this afternoon, and to be honest I wasn't 100 percent confident," said the Brazilian. "I couldn't get a feel for the level of grip at times and that was just enough to make the difference.

"It would have been very easy to make a significant mistake and damage the car. But from where I am it is still possible to fight, both in qualifying and the race tomorrow."