Raikkonen on pole, Alonso suffers puncture

Kimi Raikkonen finally managed to get a pole position again and did it with only 0.002 seconds ahead of second places Michael Schumacher. Nick Heidfeld is behind him, followed by Felipe Massa. Fernando Alonso is in 5th place and faces a tough challenge through the race with damaged bodywork after some pieces of carbon broke because of a tyre failure during the final qualifying session. It was already the second puncture as Yamamoto also suffered one, so one may expect tyre problems during tomorrow's GP of Italy.

One of the Toyota's was the first to come on track and was rapidly followed by several other drivers. After 5 minutes David Coulthard set the best time just before a red flag was waved. The session was stopped for about 5 minutes in order to clean debris from the track coming from the Bridgestone tyre of Yamamoto. The left rear tyre of the Super Aguri car burst as he had just passed the finish line. He was luckily able to hold control over the car and return to the pitlane.

Both Ferraris hit the track after that break and both set the best times at that time as Michael Schumacher was 0.3s faster than his teammate on both their first flying laps. A bit better than expected, Fernando Alonso put himself in between the two Ferraris and continued to push in his second lap. The first sector was even a further 3 tenths down on his own best time but he decided to enter the pitlane after being held up by some traffic.

At the very end of the session, Christian Klien messed up his qualifying as he spun off in the second variante without being able to continue his lap and the rest of qualifying. While he qualified for part 2, he will not be able to continue and attempt to further improve his position. Klien's teammate is doing better again as he put himself in 12th position and is through to Q2.

Both Renaults are out quickly in session 2 in order to put in a lap to be safe early. Alonso was once more faster than his teammate and put in a very good time, most likely enough for him to secure a place in the next phase of qualifying. Later on, Raikkonen, Schumacher and Massa break the time one after another. All men are however close to each other as there are only a few tenths seperating them. De La Rosa managed to qualify too for the final session as he completed a final lap on brand new tyres. Jenson Button pulled off the same trick and kicks Trulli out of the top ten.

The competitors in Q3 confirm that the most important factor in Monza is the car, and more importantly the engine and the level of drag. There are only 5 teams in the top 10, meaning that Ferrari, BMW Sauber, Renault, McLaren and Honda are present with both their drivers. BMW Sauber look especially dangerous this weekend as Heidfeld and Kubica have been on form all weekend. As it looks now, they may also become important in the championships if they can mangle between Ferrari and Renault.

Few laps in qualifying Fernando Alonso missed a braking point and cut off the chicane. Half a lap later, it became obvious his right rear tyre punctured. Similar to Yamamoto's Bridgestone, this time a Michelin tyre failed as the thread just ran off the wheel. Fernando slowly came back into the pitlane and therefore lost a lap of fuel for the race and will be more charged than planned at the end of qualifying which will no doubt hinder his qualifying performance.

With 2 minutes to go, Alonso is only 8th and Fisichella even 9th. Kimi Raikkonen on the other hand put in the fastest of the first flying laps ahead of both Ferraris and the BMW Saubers.

The second series proved to be tense as Raikkonen improved Schumacher's better lap with only 0.002s. The last to come over the finish is Ferando Alonso who started his flying lap with only 2 seconds remaining in the session. While Kimi obviously peformed wery well, it was Fernando Alonso who put in an extremely good effort by qualifying 5th in the closing seconds. In regards to the damage of the bodywork and the extra fuel it may have been one of his best qualifyings ever.