Phew – not even the most eternal optimist would have expected such a scenario, with all three world championship contenders lining up in reverse order to their points standing. The first sector of Raikkonen's lap was, at best, ordinary, and beaten by Fernando Alonso, Montoya and Rubens Barrichello. It was followed by superb second and third split times, which all added up to pole position by 0.124sec over Barrichello, who was second fastest.

"It doesn't matter how good the lap feels as long as it means the front row and first place," said the Finn. "I wasn't very happy with the car before but we just got it right for qualifying and I got a normal, good lap. It was enough."

But how much fuel was in that McLaren to transform it from also-ran to pole position? Ferrari's technical director Ross Brawn seemed to be suggesting not much…

"Obviously, everyone has ideas about how to run the race tomorrow," said Brawn. "We are quite pleased with our car and our strategy for tomorrow. Kimi has the least to lose at this stage. This might give him a slight psychological advantage, but that won't mean anything in the race."

Juan Pablo Montoya's Williams-BMW was the quickest car down the straights, but seemed to lose out in the twisty sections of the circuit, and dropped to fourth. He was, however, over a tenth clear of team-mate Ralf Schumacher, who was fifth fastest.

"That's what we've got, so we'll see where it gets us tomorrow," Montoya said somewhat grimly. "We don't know what tyres they [his title rivals] are using, or what strategy they're running."

Still, fourth place was much better than championship leader M Schumacher. He looked very ragged on his flying lap, and he languished over half a second off Raikkonen's pole pace which dropped him to seventh.

Ferrari team-mate Barrichello led the way for the Prancing Horse in second position, and said: "I was actually hoping for pole. It still was a good lap, but I had to compromise on the set-up because it felt really loose in the warm-up. It paid off a little bit."

Olivier Panis scored Toyota's best ever grid position in third, and was exactly a quarter of a second off pole. Once again, doubts were raised over how much fuel is in the Toyota's tank ahead of tomorrow's race.

"All weekend we've been quite competitive," he said. "We've worked hard to improve the car step-by-step. It's been a long time since I've been here, so I hope we continue like this."

Alonso was sixth fastest for Renault, but its star of the weekend Jarno Trulli failed to produce when it mattered. His team worked wonders to repair his race car after a shunt in the warm-up that preceded qualifying, but he could only manage the 10th fastest time and looked all at sea.

David Coulthard was eighth for McLaren, just missing out on the target of getting ahead of M Schumacher, while Cristiano da Matta backed up Panis's efforts in 10th.

Bridgestone-shod BAR-Honda duo Jenson Button and Jacques Villeneuve were next up, as the Michelin teams dominated at the front once more. Nick Heidfeld was 13th, ahead of Jaguar's Mark Webber, who went from Friday hero to Saturday near-zero thanks to an untidy lap that was only three-tenths quicker than team-mate Justin Wilson. The second Sauber of Heinz-Harald Frentzen intersected the two Jags.

The Jordans (Giancarlo Fisichella and Ralph Firman) and the Minardis (Jos Verstappen and Nicolas Kiesa) completed the grid.

Rain is forecast ahead of the race tomorrow – is Schuey banking on it?