Barrichello: My best Suzuka lap.

Rubens Barrichello has admitted that his pole-winning effort for Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix was possibly the best lap he had ever strung together at the Suzuka circuit.

The Brazilian dodged the early stages on the rainstorm that would cause problems for the fastest runners from Friday, and romped in seven-tenths quicker than the provisional pole time set by Juan Montoya. The Colombian would eventually wind up sharing the front row with the man he punted out of the last round at Indianapolis, such was the severity of the downpour that followed.

"This was definitely my best ever qualifying lap at Suzuka," Barrichello enthused afterwards, "This morning, although the car was good on used tyres, I was not happy with it on new tyres. But we made changes which improved it a lot in time for the warm-up.

"I drove an aggressive lap, even though it was already spitting, and I attacked the Esses section hard. I was alright on the fast section, but I braked a bit conservatively into the chicane as, by then, there was a lot of water on my visor."

The Ferrari driver revealed that, despite his team-mate being in line for a record-breaking sixth world title and Ferrari looking to see off the threat of Montoya's Williams-BMW outfit for the constructors' title, he was not going to change his gameplan on Sunday.

"I do not feel under any pressure and tomorrow I just plan to enjoy the race," he said, "If I win, then, for Michael, the job is done and, with me and Juan Pablo on the front row and Michael and Ralf further back, it should be interesting for the constructors'."

Asked in the press conference whether he thought the battle for constructors' points would affect the cleanliness of his battle with friend and rival Montoya, Barrichello grinned and revealed his devilish master plan...

"Now it is my chance to put him off," he teased, "I will wait for him on the first corner and then I will crash!"

Montoya admitted that the battle for the teams' championship had probably swung slightly further towards Ferrari, with team-mate Ralf Schumacher stranded on the back row by the heavy rain, but vowed to do all he could to help redress the balance.

"It's going to be pretty hard now - Ralf is going to start from the back of the grid and Michael [Schumacher] is P14, so they are going to be quite close together," he explained, "It is up to me to get in front of Rubens, hopefully without touching this time - although there are no guarantees on that - and then see what happens. We are going to do the best we can and if it meant to be our way it is going to be our way, if it's not, it's not."