Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya put his Williams on pole position for Sunday's Monaco Formula One Grand Prix with a sensational flying lap around the twisting street circuit in the last few seconds.
Montoya claimed his second pole of the season to pip McLaren's David Coulthard by 0.392 seconds. His time of one minute 16.676 seconds was well inside Coulthard's 2001 pole time of 1:17.430
It was the first front row start for Coulthard since the title-deciding Hungarian race of August 2001.
Ferrari's world champion Michael Schumacher was pushed off the front row for the second successive race, settling for third place alongside his younger brother Ralf in the second Williams.
Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, Schumacher's team mate who was forced to give way to the German at the last race in Austria, was fifth fastest alongside the second McLaren driven by young Finn Kimi Raikkonen.
Jordan’s Giancarlo Fisichella managed to push his car up to 11th position while Takuma Sato took 16th. Eddie Irvine ended up on the back row in his Jaguar, just ahead of this season’s slowest driver Alex Yoong.
Schumacher will be chasing a record-equalling sixth Monaco win on Sunday and his sixth in seven races. He leads the championship by 27 points from Montoya.