World champion Michael Schumacher led a dominant Ferrari one-two in the first qualifying session for Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix, the sixth race of the world championship.
Schumacher, who gave the new F2003-GA machine a winning debut at the last race in Barcelona, finished more than half a second faster than Ferrari's closest rival, Mark Webber of Jaguar.
The German went out second in the session and controlled a last corner slide to set a time of 1min 07.908secs and beat last year's pole time of 1:08.082.
His time was 0.279 secs faster than that of his Brazilian team-mate Rubens Barrichello, who finished second, and 0.604 secs faster than Australian Webber.
Canadian Jacques Villeneuve finished fourth in a BAR-Honda after beating his fifth-placed British team-mate Jenson Button by little more than a tenth of a second.
Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, whose Williams-BMW team-mate Ralf Schumacher spun off during his one-lap run, finished sixth with Scot David Coulthard seventh for McLaren-Mercedes but more than a second slower than the lead Ferrari.
Coulthard's team-mate Kimi Raikkonen finished eighth with Webber's team-mate Brazilian Antonio Pizzonia and Italian Giancarlo Fisichella of Jordan completing the top ten.
German Ralf Schumacher caused the session to be briefly halted after 14 minutes when he spun out between the Grosser and Niki Lauda corners on his single-lap run.
His stricken car had to be crane lifted out of the gravel trap and he will run first in Saturday's qualifying session after failing to set a time.
The session was stopped for a second time when Ralph Firman spun his Jordan as he exited the final corner and crashed into the wall on the pit straight.
Ralph rolled backwards over the line to set a time of one min 11.171 secs, which put him one place above Ralf Schumacher at the bottom of the timesheets and 3.263 secs behind Michael Schumacher.
Ferrari dominated last year's event but were strongly criticised when they used blatant team orders to force Rubens Barrichello to hand victory to Schumacher.
1. Michael Schumacher (Germany) Ferrari one minute 07.908 seconds
2. Rubens Barrichello (Brazil) Ferrari 1:08.187
3. Mark Webber (Australia) Jaguar 1:08.512
4. Jacques Villeneuve (Canada) BAR 1:08.680
5. Jenson Button (Britain) BAR 1:08.831
6. Juan Pablo Montoya (Colombia) Williams 1:08.839
7. David Coulthard (Britain) McLaren 1:08.947
8. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland) McLaren 1:08.978
9. Antonio Pizzonia (Brazil) Jaguar 1:09.024
10.
Giancarlo Fisichella(Italy) Jordan 1:09.281
11. Jarno Trulli (Italy) Renault 1:09.450
12. Nick Heidfeld (Germany) Sauber 1:09.479
13. Fernando Alonso (Spain) Renault 1:09.680
14. Olivier Panis (France) Toyota 1:09.764
15. Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Germany) Sauber 1:10.055
16. Cristiano da Matta (Brazil) Toyota 1:10.370
17. Jos Verstappen (Netherlands) Minardi 1:10.894
18. Justin Wilson (Britain) Minardi 1:11.056
19.
Ralph Firman(Britain/Ireland) Jordan 1:11.171
20. Ralf Schumacher (Germany) Williams no time