Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) has set pole position on Bridgestone's medium compound Potenza at the Circuit de Catalunya for the fourth round of the FIA Formula One World Championship, the Gran Premio de Espana Telefonica.

On a day of exceptionally close times, Raikkonen's pole lap of 1min 21.813secs was just under a tenth quicker than second fastest driver, Fernando Alonso (Renault). Felipe Massa (Ferrari) qualified in third, and BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica set the fourth fastest time.

McLaren Mercedes team-mates Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen will start tomorrow's race on the third row of the grid, with Hamilton the quicker. Mark Webber (Red Bull) will start from seventh position, with Toyota's Jarno Trulli alongside. Nick Heidfeld (BMW Sauber) and Nelson Piquet (Renault) rounded off the top ten qualifiers.

In the morning practice session Heidfeld went fastest, with a time of 1min 21.269secs set on the medium compound. All through the day lap times were very close with only a second separating the top 15 cars through the day. Massa set the day's fastest time, using the medium compound to achieve a 1min 20.584secs in Q2.

Track conditions are improved from yesterday as more rubber has been laid on the track. Both the medium and hard compound Potenza tyres have delivered very close performance here today, under glorious sunshine and blue skies.

Hirohide Hamashima - Director of Bridgestone Motorsport Tyre Development:
"Congratulations to Kimi Raikkonen on his first pole of the year and congratulations also to Fernando Alonso for returning to the front row in of his Spanish supporters. It was a very difficult qualifying session today for drivers with only a second separating the top 15 cars in both Q1 and Q2. The teams have clearly found the optimum setups to get the best out of both the hard and medium compound Bridgestone Potenza tyres we have brought, after testing here last week. Tyre performance is returning to what we saw in the test as the track improves. Performance is so close that tomorrow will be a very interesting race. So far, there has not much difference between the two compounds, which means many strategy options for tomorrow's race."