Qualifying for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro’s home race ended with one F60 on the second row of the grid, through Kimi Raikkonen’s third place and the other car, with Giancarlo Fisichella at the controls, on the seventh row in fourteenth place, as our new driver failed to make it through to the final top ten shoot-out. Having spent yesterday’s free practice acclimatising to the unfamiliar surroundings of the Ferrari cockpit and experiencing the effects of KERS for the first time, today the Roman was prepared to up the pace. Unfortunately, in free practice, he lost control of the car, damaging it quite badly when he ended up in the crash barriers. There are only two hours between the end of Saturday’s free practice and the start of qualifying, but the well-drilled Ferrari mechanics got the car ready in time for Fisichella to go out in search of a grid position. Life was a bit smoother on the other side of the garage and Kimi again produced a very strong performance in all three sections of qualifying, especially the final one on race fuel.

Lewis Hamilton took pole for McLaren-Mercedes and, amazingly, for the second race in succession – after Fisichella took pole for them in Spa – a Force India is on the front row of the grid, this time courtesy of Adrian Sutil; yet another surprising scenario in a season that has been full of them. The second row is an all-Finnish affair, as Kimi has the other McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen alongside him, while Row 3 is occupied by the championship leading Brawns, with Rubens Barrichello fifth and Jenson Button sixth.

Tomorrow’s 53 lap race is the shortest on the F1 calendar, in terms of time, so the start might be even more crucial than usual in determining the final outcome. The biggest unknown factor could be the weather, as Friday night saw the Monza area hit by heavy rain, while this afternoon, the 4pm start of the GP2 race had to be delayed as thunder and Lightning left the track covered in standing water. Monza might be one of the world’s most iconic, interesting and legendary circuits, but driving in zero visibility at these high speeds is not a prospect the drivers will relish.