Qualifying Report - Trulli on the pole

There will be dancing on the streets of Toyota City tonight thanks to Jarno Trulli's pole position for the United States Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Trulli gave Toyota a much-needed boost after a difficult time on Friday when Ralf Schumacher crashed and was replaced by third driver Ricardo Zonta. It is Toyota's first pole position in Formula 1.

Trulli ran in the middle of the qualifying session and his time remained fastest despite the best efforts of the drivers who followed and the suggestion is that the Toyota is probably running a lighter fuel load than normal. Things got exciting in the final minutes of the session when Kimi Raikkonen went for pole and crossed the line just 0.069secs behind the Toyota. There was then a big 0.6secs gap back to Jenson Button in his BAR-Honda, who was fractionally faster than the Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella. Michael Schumacher was fifth fastest, an indication that Michelin tyre performance has dropped as teams are running the tyres with higher pressures than normally.

Fernando Alonso was sixth quickest ahead of Rubens Barrichello in the second Ferrari and Takuma Sato in his BAR-Honda. Mark Webber was ninth quickest, the faster of the two Williams drivers on this occasion while Felipe Massa again impressive with the 10th fastest lap.

It was a disappointing session for Juan Pablo Montoya who had to run early in the session and suffered for it. He ended up 11tha head of Jacques Villeneuve, Zonta (who also ran early in the session), Christian Klien and Nick Heidfeld.