Montoya beats Germans in Germany.

Juan Montoya did the unthinkable in qualifying at the Nurburgring and dared to beat, not only Mercedes-Benz, but also both Schumacher brothers to pole position for Sunday's European Grand Prix.

Whilst there was some consolation for the host nation in that the Colombian was driving a car powered by the rapid BMW V10, there was little else for the patriotic crowd to cheer as Williams prevented its hero from taking a front row slot.

With the new addition to the circuit at turn one still proving dusty, there was little action for the first quarter of the session. As usual, it was Minardi that blinked first, sending Alex Yoong out to set the first benchmark time and, despite running slower than he had managed in the second half of morning free practice, the Malaysian did enough to ensure that he would be in the field.

With Jacques Villeneuve then going over two seconds faster than Yoong within the next five minutes, the signal went out for the rest of the pit-lane to begin considering its opening salvo, and it was the Michelin-shod teams that led the way thereafter.

Kimi Raikkonen was among the first batch of frontrunning drivers to make his way onto the new-look circuit and, going faster than he had all weekend, took another two seconds from the target. The Finn's time was around the mark set by Michael Schumacher in the morning practice session, and was not expected to survive for long, but no-one expected it to be the other local favourite to be the one to beat the mark - and by so much.

After a string of rivals tried and failed to beat the Finn's time, including Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Felipe Massa, Allan McNish and David Coulthard - who all took turns in second, it was the first of the Williams drivers who finally found the key. Having slowly brought his car around to his liking during the two 45 minute sessions on Saturday morning, Ralf Schumacher's first flying lap was good enough to take a further half second from provisional pole, setting a target too good for Rubens Barrichello, whose Ferrari also deposed Raikkonen by slotting into second.

The other Ferrari also fell by the wayside, but Michael Schumacher did not even set a time before aborting his first hot lap. Pulling into the pits, uncertain about the handling of his F2002, the world champion hopped quickly into the spare car. This proved to be no better than the original, however, leaving the German hero in seventh spot after a couple of wayward moments.

Montoya's second effort also failed to match that of his team-mate, but allowed the Colombian to slot into third spot. The gap at that point was still a matter of tenths, but Schumacher Jr's next attempt - set while his team-mate was competing his slowing down lap - appeared to have taken top spot out of the reach of everyone save, perhaps, for the genius of his brother.

Ducking close to Sauber's prediction for pole time - 1min 29.915 compared to the Swiss estimate of 1min 29.858 - Schumacher took fully six-tenths from his previous best, briefly opening a similar gap over the rest of the field until Barrichello trimmed his own time to close the gap once more.

Ferrari then took second and third positions as Schumacher Sr, back in the race car, duly found handfuls of time to move ahead of his Brazilian team-mate and secure the fastest splits through sectors one and two. His mark was still some three-tenths off the Williams, however.

With McLaren seemingly unable to get either Raikkonen or Coulthard within half a second of provisional pole, the battle for top spot appeared to have boiled down to a straight battle between Williams and Ferrari, but Montoya then produced his miracle lap to put the issue seemingly beyond doubt. Down at the beginning of the lap, the Colombian began to slowly claw back the deficit, before racing across the line with 0.009secs in hand over his team-mate.

Barrichello's reply was to improve his time once again, but to remain in fourth place, while Ralf's final effort came up two-tenths shy of his own previous best, let along of stealing pole. With Montoya subsequently aborting his final run after running wide in the new section, it was left to the world champion to wrest back some pride for the homeland.

It appeared to be going well for the German, despite being off target at the first split, until the final corner. With an established record of superiority in the final sectors, Schumacher was under Montoya's time at the final timecheck, only to lose the back end ever so slightly as he exited the final corner. The 'error' cost him two-tenths, and the chance of even splitting the Williams duo on row one.

The outcome was a two-by-two grid as far back as row four, with Barrichello comfortably holding on to fourth alongside his team leader, and the two McLarens and Renaults lining up in formation behind the two red cars.

In both cases, it was the senior partner who came out on top, with Coulthard finding time on each of his runs to ease past Raikkonen into fifth and hold off the Finn as he, too, improved. Jarno Trulli likewise trailed team-mate Jenson Button for much of the session, only to improve in the closing stages and easily hold off the Briton for seventh.

The uniformity was only broken at row five, where Nick Heidfeld made the most of a quick final effort to dislodge the Toyota of Mika Salo. The pair had been in the top ten for much of the session, at the expense of their respective team-mates, but remained closely matched until Heidfeld's best lap put over a tenth between them.

Massa finally got the better of McNish for eleventh, and the Scot was further deposed from row six when Olivier Panis finally got something out of the substantially revised Honda and stole twelfth place. There was worse news for the Frenchman's team-mate, however, as he trailed the rest of the Honda contingent - and both Jaguars - in 19th.

Second among the Japanese engine users was the latest find from the land of the rising sun. Takuma Sato maintained his impressive practice form to again out-pace Jordan team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella, and take 14th place behind McNish. Fisichella vied with Villeneuve for the right to be slowest of the Hondas, but eventually pipped the Canadian by four-tenths.

Frentzen's moment in second spot was extremely short-lived, and the German could do little to prevent Arrows, quick at most other tracks, from slipping down the order. While the German did not suffer the indignity of team-mate Enrique Bernoldi, who fell to 21st overall, he will start Sunday's race from 15th, one place and a mere tenth ahead of the best of the Jaguars.

After his fraught morning, in which he completed just six laps and learned of Spain's exit from the World Cup, Pedro de la Rosa did well to put his R3 onto row eight. The Spaniard belied his lack of track time in qualifying guise by outgunning team-mate Eddie Irvine by a couple of tenths, but will line up just one place ahead of the Irishman as Cosworth's latest product pulled the two Jags away from the back of the grid.

Behind Fisichella and Villeneuve, Mark Webber again performed admirably in the lead Minardi - showing why Jaguar wants to test him next week - to put his PS02 into 20th spot. The Australian was comfortably ahead of Bernoldi, who failed to come to grips with the second Arrows, with Yoong filling the final spot, easily beating the 107 per cent time with an improvement over his opening effort of 1.6secs.

At the opposite end of the grid, Montoya watched his third successive pole position receive confirmation from the back of the Williams garage, before venturing out to accept the congratulations of both the assembled media and, more importantly, his principal rivals. All the Colombian needs now is to be in the same situation on Sunday afternoon.