Having escaped the ignominy of missing out in the first phase of qualifying for the French Grand Prix,
Nick Heidfeld was unable to repeat the feat in Q2, missing out on the top ten shoot-out for the second time in three races.
Despite his Q1 woes, the German - and his
BMW Sauber team - persisted with the tactic of leaving it late before even venturing out of the garage and, while his first flying lap was enough to get Heidfeld up to tenth, it wasn't enough to counter later improvements elsewhere, with
Nelson Piquet Jr dumping the Canadian GP runner-up out of the afternoon.
Not that Piquet survived much longer, however, for the Saturday morning pacesetter did just enough to topple Heidfeld and was then himself toppled back into the 'drop zone' by a late late effort from
David Coulthard.
Piquet and Heidfeld were joined below the cut-off line by the two Toro Rossos - surprisingly given
Sebastian Vettel's earlier pace - and
Nico Rosberg, who drop to the very back of the grid once his ten-place grid penalty is imposed.
Lewis Hamilton will suffer a similar punishment, but has the chance to improve his lot by making it through to the final phase, having posted the third best time of the second session, just a couple of tenths off
Felipe Massa's outright pace. Such was the close nature of the chasing pack, however, only the two Ferraris opted against venturing out in the final minute.
Kimi Raikkonen took second spot, with
Jarno Trulli and
Fernando Alonso rounding out the top five.
Mark Webber joined
Red Bull team-mate David Coulthard in the shoot-out group, while
Timo Glock and
Heikki Kovalainen also ensured two representatives for
Toyota and
McLaren respectively.
