The German, who earlier this weekend claimed that he sees this weekend as a “home” event, went some way to proving that he is not at all concerned about his poor start to the season. Having been tenth fastest in this morning's hour-long free practice session he pulled an utterly devastating lap out of the bag this afternoon.

Ferrari begin the European campaign with last year's F2002 chassis, still seeking its first victory of the season but the evidence suggests that the F2002 still has more than the necessary pace.

Williams may be disappointed to be so far away from the Ferraris, given that its cars were first and second in this morning's session. However, Ralf Schumacher looks to have overcome his problems with the one-shot qualifying system and set the third fastest lap time ahead of team-mate Montoya.

Mark Webber is continuing to shine for Jaguar. Fifth fastest heading into tomorrow's final qualifying session gives him an excellent chance to shoot for a top-five qualifying position towards the end of tomorrow's session. Webber's lap was put into even stronger perspective by team-mate Antonio Pizzonia, who could manage only 14th fastest lap.

Jenson Button outdid his BAR team-mate Jacques Villeneuve for sixth, while Malaysian GP winner Kimi Raikkonen took eighth ahead of fellow McLaren driver David Coulthard. Heinz-Harald Frentzen rounded out the top ten.

Ralph Firman had to content himself with 16th, five slots adrift of Jordan team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella after a moment at the Variante Alta, while Justin Wilson again brought up the rear but was just 0.2s adrift of Minardi team-mate Jos Verstappen.