Early bird Enge catches the pole.

Tomas Enge caught his rivals napping at Magny-Cours, popping in a quick lap to secure his second successive pole position of the FIA F3000 season.

The Czech was among the first out onto the smooth French circuit when pit-lane opened following the F1 practice sessions, and made the most of a relatively quiet circuit to bang in a time on his second lap that would not be beaten for the rest of the afternoon. While his rivals used the early minutes to fettle their cars, Enge and Nordic Racing stole the prize from under their very noses.

It was just as well that the championship aspirant performed as he did when he did, however, for both conditions and mechanical problems conspired against him later on. Like almost then entire field, Enge found improvements hard to come by as the track and weather conditions altered enough to sap times from the identical Lola fleet, but the Czech also suffered a gearbox failure that confined him to the pits for a large period in session two.

Fortunately for the season's best team, no-one else at the sharp end of the field was able to take advantage of Enge's absence as the second session proved largely slower than the first. Only those towards the back end of the grid managed to find time, leaving Enge unopposed for pole.

As had been the case at the Nurburgring last weekend, Mark Webber proved to be the Czech's closest rival, but the Super Nova driver was a massive half-second adrift on both occasions that the chequered flag fell. Trying throughout, Webber was among the very fastest in the second session but, by then, his chance had gone.

Showing that track experience counts for a lot in single-make racing, F3000 rookie Patrick Friesacher turned in another impressive qualifying performance, making the most of the years he spent at the local La Filiere racing school. More used to tackling Magny-Cours in Formula Campus and F3 machinery, the Austrian nevertheless adapted quickly to it in an F3000 Lola to ease out series leader Justin Wilson on row two.

Not following the exact same session structure as his team-mate, Wilson was unable to match Enge's performance, and had to settle for fourth overall, some 0.785secs down on the Czech. The British youngster will take heart, however, from the fact that the last time he started on the outside of row two - at the A1-Ring - he beat Enge to the top step of the podium.

Super Nova's set-up was underlined by Mario Haberfeld's surprise appearance on row three. The Brazilian should, in terms of talent, be in and around that sort of position with regularity, but will hope to make the most of his good fortune to score more points on Sunday.

Haberfeld headed a group of three drivers who remained tied together from the Nurburgring grid, as David Saelens, Sebastien Bourdais and Darren Manning occupied sixth through seventh. Bourdais overcame numerous trips through the gravel to find time late in the opening session and climb from the lower reaches of the order to seventh, but could do nothing about the six drivers ahead of him.

The top ten was completed by Brazilian Antonio Pizzonia, who found time in session two to break into the top half of the grid, and Jonathan Cochet, another newcomer making the most of his prior track knowledge to take the leading Prost entry to tenth. He was lucky to do so, however, after a brush with the wall in the first 45-minute session.

Pizzonia's improvement pushed the erratic Giorgio Pantano out of the top ten, leaving the Italian to fend off the advances of the two Ricardos - Mauricio and Sperafico - who will line up behind him in tomorrow's race.

Further back, Bas Leinders disappointed in 14th, as did Rodrigo Sperafico and Jaime Melo in 18th and 19th. The Interlagos pole winner never looked on the pace, and compounded his problems by beaching the Durango car in the gravel early in the second session.

Incidents were plentiful as the drivers came to grips with the slippery surface, and most had some sort of moment or other during the combined 90 minutes of practice. For those that did not go off, there was always unreliability to contend with - as Andrea Piccini and Darren Manning discovered, although the Yorkshireman was lucky to suffer his failure right at the end of the day.