Monza qualifying: Pizzonia takes pole

After storms caused both of Friday's 45-minute sessions to be cancelled, drivers were faced with just 20 minutes to grab a place on the grid for this afternoon's (Saturday's) race.

Giorgio Pantano had topped the saturated running of yesterday and the Spaniard looked set to stay at the top again. With five minutes to go the Astromega driver was in the number one slot, but he had not accounted for Wilson and Pizzonia.

Wilson jumped to the top and crossed the line with just one second before the before the chequered flag was waved, allowing the Nordic ace another lap. Meanwhile, Pizzonia was in the process of completing his final flying lap which when he crossed the line moved him 0.003s ahead of Wilson.

However, all was not settled as Wilson was still flying around on his last lap, but despite his efforts, he was unable to improve on his previous lap and stayed second handing the Brazilian his maiden F3000 pole.

Pantano managed to hold onto third place ahead of Supernova's Mark Webber, who needs to score just one point this weekend to take second place in the championship. The Australian is currently equal second with Tomas Enge, who is making his Grand Prix debut this weekend with the Prost team.

Webber's Super Nova team mate Mario Haberfeld finished fifth, closely followed by fellow countryman Ricardo Sperafico to make it three Brazilian's in the top six.

With the race due to start just over 30 minutes after qualifying finished (at 1435 BST), drivers were keen to stay out of trouble and despite a frantic session there was little incident.


For the qualifying results click here.