Qualifying: Wilson takes pole as Webber shunts

Wilson set his fastest time on his second flying lap of the first session, and it was good enough for the Briton to take his first pole of the season.

"This is exactly what I wanted," he said. "I've been struggling in qualifying this year, so I had to do it here. I got on with it on my first lap, and set the time on my second. It gave us chance to experiment with settings in the second session, because we had the time in the bag, but it was quite nerve-racking watching the timing screens."

Webber, meanwhile, had been blocked on his first run of the day and was trying to make up time when he went off at the final corner, spun across the track and slammed into the pitwall. Although his Super Nova squad worked wonders to get him back out in the second session, but the best he could manage was 11th quickest time.

"The first run was a traffic disaster, then I got out of shape on my second go, got on the kerb and that was it," he said. "In F3000 it's hard to do much from back there, but I've just got to try and score some points."

Wilson's Nordic Racing team mate Tomas Enge was second fastest, just 0.022secs behind, while Bas Leinders scored one of his best-ever F3000 results with third in his KTR-run machine. Webber's team mate Mario Haberfeld slipped from second to fourth in the second session as he, like fifth-placed David Saelens (European Minardi), set his best time in the first session.

Arden's Darren Manning made a late jump from 10th to sixth on tomorrow's grid, ahead of Patrick Friesacher (Red Bull), Antonio Pizzonia (Petrobras), Ricardo Sperafico (Petrobras) and Giorgio Pantano (Astromega).

Click here for the qualifying results.