Hakkinen will be on the front row with Schumacher

Hakkinen was fastest after the first two runs, but Schumacher pounced on his third flying lap.

He set a lap of one minute 20.447 seconds on his third run, to edge out his rival by just over 0.1s.

But it always looked as though it was going to be close, and with an all-out last-minute effort, the double world champion was agonisingly close on 1:20.529.

Schumacher said: "It was a difficult and interesting session because there was only half an hour to go when most people decided to leave the pits.

"We had no experience in the dry today. Then the monitors failed so we didn't know where we were fast or slow, which sometimes helps to know where to work."

Schumacher said he made a mistake on his fastest lap, running slightly wide at Stowe, but he said it had not cost him too much.

Coulthard was a little further behind than he would have wanted to be, setting a 1:20.957s.

Tyre pressure

Other impressive performances came from Jarno Trulli, Juan Pablo Montoya, Pedro de la Rosa and Jenson Button.

Trulli is fourth on the grid in the Jordan-Honda, just 0.003s slower than Coulthard, while Montoya beat team-mate Ralf Schumacher despite having a difficult session in which he was forced to switch to the spare car.

Montoya will line up eighth - Michelin have clearly not got a particularly good tyre for this weekend. All the drivers in front of him are on Bridgestones.

Both De la Rosa and Button beat their respective team-mates, Eddie Irvine and Giancarlo Fisichella, who have dominated them thus far this year.

Minardi driver Tarso Marques failed to qualify because he did set a time that was within the regulation 107% of pole position.

The team's appeal was rejected on the grounds that there were no exceptional circumstances to explain the Brazilian's lack of pace.

Marques was 1.714 seconds slower than his team-mate, the Spaniard Fernando Alonso.