Alonso's time of 1:19.905 just pipped that of arch-rival Kimi Raikkonen, the McLaren driver recording 1:19.932. However, Raikkonen will start 12th, having endured a ten place penalty for an engine change as he did in France last weekend.

On the front row alongside Alonso will be British hope Jenson Button who powered the BAR-Honda around Silverstone in 1:20.207 to eclipse the second McLaren of Juan Pablo Montoya (1:20.382).

Jarno Trulli continues his fine qualifying form at Toyota and will start fourth with 1:20.459, and Rubens Barrichello was fastest Ferrari, fifth on 1:20.906.

Beside Rubens on row three will be Giancarlo Fisichella in the second Renault (1:21.010.)

Takuma Sato drove well to qualify his BAR in seventh place with 1:21.114, ahead of Ralf Schumacher (1:21.191) in the second Toyota.

The final top ten runners are Michael Schumacher in the Ferrari on 1:21.275 and former champion Jacques Villeneuve (1:21.352), who continues his recent good form with a lap more than a second quicker than team mate Felipe Massa (1:22.495) who will start a distant 16th.

The Williams-BMW drivers continue to struggle, Mark Webber managing 1:21.997 in the updated 'France-spec' chassis to start 11th, and Nick Heidfeld opting to run the old-spec car setting 1:22.117 for 14th place.

At Red Bull the drivers are similarly evenly matched; David Coulthard starts 13th on 1:22.108 and Christian Klien 15th on 1:22.207 despite being hampered by running first in the session.

Narain Karthikeyan will line his Jordan up 17th, while team mate Tiago Monteiro starts last having changed an engine and opted not to set a time, and at Minardi Cristijan Albers will start 18th ahead of his team mate Patrick Friesacher, having out-qualified the Austrian by almost a second.

The speculation, as usual, surrounds relative fuel loads, and with Raikkonen running considerably more laps than rival Alonso last week in France a similar strategy is to be expected. Likewise Button and Trulli.

The BAR team confess to being 'very happy' with Buttons time, while Trulli tends to qualify very well then hold up those behind him in the race. Will the same happen tomorrow?

A thrilling race is surely in store.