Michael Scumacher has claimed his 66th pole position and beat Jenson Button and a resurgent Rubens Barrichello to the top spot. Whilst Felipe Massa was a second behind his German team mate, he still managed to keep 4th place, ahead of Fernando Alonso and Ralf Schumacher. Completing the McLaren sandwich (Montoya 7th and Raikkonen 8th) was Toyota’s other driver, Jarno Trulli. Mark Webber completes the top ten. With a time of 1m 23.771s, Fisichella would have qualified 6th had he managed to get to the final session, but alas was knocked out in the second and will start 11th.

It was good to see Schumacher back on form, and his expression after the qualifying session was nice to see – he always manages to look so overwhelmingly happy after a good performance. The pace of the Ferrari was confirmed with Massa starting 4th (albeit a second behind), and although Alonso is way back in 5th, I cannot count him out on having a good start and a good strategy for tomorrows San Marino Grand Prix.

For the record, Michael Schumacher now holds the record for most career poles, eclipsing Ayrten Senna’s record of 65.