In fact the first three rows of the grid are uniform. Rubens Barrichello lines up alongside the world champion, Montoya and Ralf Schumacher's Williams FW26s fill row two and an excellent lap from Takuma Sato, who out-qualified his team-mate Jenson Button, made sure the BARs are fifth and sixth.

Schumacher, fourth quickest in the pre-qualifying session, just eclipsed Barrichello's benchmark in the first two sectors of his qualifying lap but found an astonishing three tenths in the final two corners. This despite a lap that he admitted was untidy by his own standards. He did well to minimise the damage from a lock up into Turn 9 though.

“We finally got everything together at the right time, and that is what matters,” said Schumacher, referring to the fact that he was only eighth in after the morning's free practice sessions. "I cannot say that it was my best lap, honestly. I think everyone struggled in some way or other, it's a very tricky circuit to get everything out of the car. It's a technically demanding circuit."

Montoya's lap had a purposeful look to it, all twitchy and clearly bang on the limit. The Colombian caught a wicked slide through the quick left-right after Turn 1 and after two sectors was 0.146s faster than either of the Ferraris. But he encountered understeer in the last sector – eventually dropping behind Barrichello's tidy if somewhat “conservative” effort.

"The first two sectors were fine," said Montoya. "It was a good lap until the last corner. I got too much understeer and couldn't get on the throttle."

Ralf Schumacher set exactly the same first sector time as Montoya, but his understeer crept in earlier in the lap and he ended up nearly half a second away from his brother.

Jarno Trulli was seventh fastest for Renault. The Italian was quick and committed but simply couldn't get the R23 through the fast stuff. But at least he posted a time of worth which is more than can be said for his team-mate Fernando Alonso, who for the second time in as many races ruined his lap with two costly errors. The Spaniard recorded the 17th fastest time.

Olivier Panis and Cristiano da Matta marked Toyota's continuing improvement after a disastrous start to the season by putting both cars in the top ten. Although both were 1.5s shy of the ultimate pace.

David Coulthard was a disappointing tenth after a weekend spoilt by punctures. McLaren team-mate Kimi Raikkonen aborted his lap after the out-lap and will start from the back. The Finn was already facing a 10-place penalty for an engine change yesterday.

Giancarlo Fisichella was 11th fastest for Sauber, outqualifying team-mate Felipe Massa, who was 13th, for the first time this season. Likewise Jaguar Racing's Christian Klien in 12th, managed to beat Mark Webber who came in a disappointing 14th. What a difference two weeks make.

Nick Heidfeld was unsurprisingly fastest of the Cosworth-powered gang in 15th, nearly six tenths quicker than his Jordan team-mate Giorgio Pantano. Gianmaria Bruni was 18th for Minardi while team-mate Zsolt Baumgartner was last of the timed runners, over five seconds off the pace.