Webber feat best in the wet

The conditions had been fluctuating from bad to worse and back to mediocre from mid morning, but the rain held off at the crucial moment. Wheel tracks started to stay on the damp surface and Webber lost no time in making hay, even though the sun was not actually shining.

"What can I say, an amazing day all-round," he exuded. "I started this morning with two long runs of twelve laps and the car was performing well. We worked on tyre comparisons and also race set-up and were pleased with the results. The heavy rain of course hampered the number of laps that we had hoped to complete but despite that we went into warm-up encouraged.

"We were fortunate that the track had dried to some extent by the time I went out, however, the team has done an amazing job with the car and pole position today is just reward for all the hard work. To be last out tomorrow is going to be interesting, lets see how it goes."

Antonio Pizzonia, on the other hand, had to qualify in the T car after wiping out his racecar in practice. The team must be getting used to their young protégé's wild antics and had the spare set up for him already. He did well, all things considered, to take eighth place, but he will be expected to give up his destructive ways sooner rather than later.

"It has been quite a difficult day for me today, with a few issues on the car this morning in testing and then my incident during warm-up," he said. "We were working through a normal list of tyre comparisons and race set-up when my car suffered a fuel issue problem that forced me to stop.

"The rain was not making my job any easier this morning when during warm-up I aqua-planned into corner and did some damage to the car. The team is now hard at work repairing what was my original race car so that I can have it as the T-car for the rest of the weekend."