Barrichello takes pole at Monza.

Rubens Barrichello ensured a good gate for the Italian Grand Prix by planting his Ferrari on pole position for the second time this season.

The Brazilian could not achieve the same sort of pace that had given Juan Montoya a new F1 speed record in pre-qualifying but, with tomorrow's race in mind, did enough to fend of his fellow South American to add to the top spot he recorded at the USGP in June. Michael Schumacher was on target for a front row spot, both during his lap and until Montoya crossed the start-finish line, but a slight error at the Parabolica and the speed of the Williams-BMW package eventually told, and consigned the German world champion to row two.

Both Barrichello and Schumacher appeared to make the same mistake, namely running a little wide through the final corner, but the Brazilian got off more lightly as he recorded a time six-tenths clear of his team-mate. While Barrichello's time - a 1min 20.0secs effort - still appeared hard to beat, there was a big enough gap for the remaining eight runners to fill once Schumacher had completed his lap.

Incredibly, for all their domination during free practice, the majority of Michelin runners proved unable to squeeze between the Ferraris. Renault had already reported that, while its cars were among the quickest through sector one, the run through the second chicane and the two Lesmos was not as good, and so it proved for most of the team's similarly-shod rivals.

Jarno Trulli was already behind the Ferraris, despite being fettled with a completely new chassis since Belgium, but neither Kimi Raikkonen or David Coulthard could do anything about the Italian cars either, although the two McLarens appeared to be running slightly heavier on fuel than the Italian. Fernando Alonso all but matched Barrichello to the first checkpoint, but fell away sharply in sector two, eventually crossing the line six-tenths slower than the Brazilian.

Williams and BAR had dominated pre-qualifying, with the Grove team taking the top two spots courtesy of Montoya and stand-in team-mate Antonio Pizzonia, who had proven his speed around Monza during last week's pre-race test. Takuma Sato had also got the better of team-mate Jenson Button, meaning the Briton was the next to go up against Barrichello's target time.

Button had reported oversteer at several points in his morning laps, and duly bolted on a little more wing for his run, but still complained that the back of the 006-Honda was a little wayward. As a result, the BAR proved slower than Alonso, slotting in to a provisional fourth place.

That became fifth as Sato completed his lap, despite the Japanese ace being slower through sector one. Both BARs turned in tidy laps to the naked eye, but Sato proved to have a little more down the long straights heading back towards the start-finish line.

Pizzonia, on his 24th birthday, was next up, and Williams clearly had high hopes of its Brazilian. However, the enigmatic substitute again turned in the sort of one-lap performance that has team managers scratching their heads, managing only seventh place with one man to run.

That man was, of course, Montoya. The Colombian doesn't rate Monza among his favourite venues, but always seems to do well when speed and bravery come together. Pole and race winner in the past, the Williams driver was third quickest to the first sector mark - behind only Schumacher and Raikkonen - but then suffered as his Michelin predecessors had, dropping three-tenths to the poleman heading to Ascari. The Williams was a similar distance from Schumacher's split time, but the German had had that lift at Parabolica to contend with, and it showed as Montoya flashed across the line to bring up P2 on the computer with 0.017secs to spare.

The only other runner to have broken the top ten in pre-qualifying was Giancarlo Fisichella, but the Sauber driver was never likely to be a factor in the endgame as his harder Bridgestone tyres struggled to reach optimum temperature in the course of a single flying lap on a race fuel load. As a result of preparing for a longer opening stint than his rivals, the Italian dropped from sixth to 15th, coming in behind both the Jaguars and Toyotas, and only just ahead of team-mate Felipe Massa, who messed up the opening chicane on his lap.

With Trulli and Coulthard rounding out the top ten, there was no chance for Ricardo Zonta and Mark Webber to advance their claims for a better grid position, but both improved on pre-qualifying to take eleventh and twelfth. Webber, like team-mate Klien, were among the minority to plump for the harder Michelins, underlining the quality of his lap. Klien, buoyed by his Spa points and pre-race test form at Monza, also turned in a solid lap, good enough for 14th overall, as he reprised the sixth row Toyota-Jaguar line-up behind Olivier Panis.

Behind the two Saubers, Jordan and Jaguar filled out the final two rows as expected, but the order received something of a shake-up with both Nick Heidfeld and Zsolt Baumgartner having to cede their places to engine-related penalties. The German's unit was changed overnight after the oil leak that ended his afternoon practice run proved more serious than hoped for.

Baumgartner, meanwhile, became the object of another car's affections for the second race weekend in a row, this time being collected at speed by the spinning Giorgio Pantano during morning practice. The Minardi chassis was sufficiently damaged to require the Hungarian to hop in to the spare, complete with new engine.

The penalties dropped the pair behind Pantano and Gianmaria Bruni, who had earlier recorded the 18th and 20th fastest times. Pantano looked on the edge throughout his lap, and ran wide both exiting Ascari and in the middle of Parabolica, dropping him almost a second behind his team-mate. Bruni, by contrast, was tidiness personified, but his time perhaps reflected Minardi's strategy rather than any lack of pace compared to the second Jordan.