Coming off the announcement that BMW and WilliamsF1 are to continue their relationship the results in qualifying must be very encouraging for tomorrows race.

For Raikkonen this was to be his first pole position with a drive that would see him finish ahead of his championship rival Michael Schumacher. Raikkonen was the last driver out and would set a time of 1m:31.523.

For Michael second would be his grid position ahead of his brother Ralf and Juan Pablo Montoya making it and all WilliamsF1 BMW second row of the grid.
For Ferrari Rubens Barrichello could only manage fifth fastest ahead of Renault's Jarno Trulli. For Toyota's Olivier Panis he would finish in seventh, which must have been disappointing considering his show of speed in the practice sessions earlier that day.

Behind Panis came Renault's Fernando Alonso, McLaren's David Coulthard and Toyota's Cristiano da Matta. For Coulthard it must have been very frustrating seeing his team-mate finish over a second faster. David's championship hopes are getting more remote and he will start to have to accept that his role will be one of supporting Raikkonen.

Mark Webber would finish in eleventh. Webber would have to wait while the Sauber of Nick Heidfeld was removed from the side of the track. For Heidfeld his qualifying run would see him run wide and end up in the gravel on his flying lap, stalling his car. As a result he will start from the back of the grid.

BAR-Honda's Jenson Button was marginally slower than Webber and he would finish in twelfth. As for BAR team-mate Villeneuve he would finish seventeenth over three seconds behind the pole time after a very ordinary lap.

For the Jordan team their drivers would finish thirteenth and fourteenth with Fisichella leading team-mate Firman. Fisichella was almost three-tenths quicker than Firman. After Heidfeld's difficulties the Sauber team would see their other driver only manage fifteenth. After a positive start to the season the Sauber team is struggling.

For Jaguar's Antonio Pizzonia he would again fail to set a competitive time and was down in sixteenth, five places behind his team-mate Webber. For Minardi it would be Verstappen who would lead Justin Wilson but again they were at the bottom of the grid in eighteenth and nineteenth places. Verstappen would have gone quicker had it not been for a a moment in the first sector when his Minardi went into a slide.

With an all WilliamsF1 second row the prospects for tomorrows European Grand Prix are looking very good. Both the team and drivers are confident of their strategy such that they are all looking forward to the race. A race win would be a great way to start off the extension of the partnership between WilliamsF1 and BMW.