1 K Raikkonen (McLaren) 2 F Alonso (Renault) 3 M Webber (Williams) 4 G Fisichella (Renault) 5 J Trulli (Toyota) 6 N Heidfeld (Williams) 7 D Coulthard (Red Bull) 8 M Schumacher (Ferrari) Qualifying as it happened

Alonso shaved the Finn's advantage to less than a tenth of a second after the second qualifying session.

Ferrari's Michael Schumacher climbed up the order from 11th but remains some way down the grid in eighth place.

Brother Ralf will start from the back of the grid with Juan Pablo Montoya after failing to post a time.

Schumacher Jr crashed out in Saturday's qualifying session, causing a 20-minute delay, and ripping off the right flank of his Toyota at Tabac.

As a result, he only came out on track for a warm-up lap on Sunday before pulling back into the pits.

Villeneuve blames Montoya

Montoya did not feature at all for the session after being dropped to the back of the grid for his part in Saturday's practice accident between Jacques Villeneuve, David Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher.

Raikkonen's pole, in an aggregate time of two minutes 30.323 seconds, was the Finn's third in a row and the sixth of his career.

It is not enough for pole but it is enough for the front row Fernando Alonso

But an advantage of nearly half-a-second in the first qualifying session was cut to just 0.083s as Alonso gave his all in the second run.

"I took it quite easy in the first part especially and then I slid a bit wide on the last corner but I think we are in a strong position right now," said Alonso.

"I didn't know at all how fast he was. I just heard when I went over the line to the first corner. But I think we are definitely in the best position we could be and I think we will have a very good race."

Alonso, though, warned his team were primed for the win after he clocked the fastest individual time in the second session.

The Spaniard said: "It is not enough for pole but it is enough for the front row and from there we have to think of the race and the strategy and the start and see what we can do."

Australia's Mark Webber held onto third place in his Williams and will be joined on the second row of the grid for the race, which starts at 1300BST, by Giancarlo Fisichella.

Jarno Trulli completed the top five, while David Coulthard, the only Briton in the race with Jenson Button's BAR team suspended, was seventh.

That left the Scot one place ahead of Michael Schumacher.

The race starts at 1300 BST and will be live on this website and Radio Five Live