The man at the front of the grid tomorrow will be Rickard Rydell after posting the best lap (1:41.259) of the qualifying session with three minutes left on the clock. This is the second pole of the year for the Swede after that in Brands Hatch.

His SEAT León will be joined on the fron row by the Alfa Romeo of Salvatore Tavano who set a time just 0.050 of a second slower than Rydell"s in the closing seconds.

Ryan Sharp unexpectedly occupied provisional pole for three minutes but his time of 1:41.381 was bettered by both Rydell and Tavano leaving the JAS Motorsport independent driver to line up 3rd. Directly behind him will be independent trophy rival Tom Coronel who qualified 5th, one position behind Augusto Farfus.

Four SEAT Sport drivers occupied 6th through to 9th place. Yvan Muller leads them followed by Thompson, Tarquini and Gené. However, due to an engine change, Tarquini will be demoted 10 places on the grid, therefore lining up 18th.

Tarquini's demotion means BMW drivers Andy Priaulx and Alessandro Zanardi will line up 9th and 10th tomorrow.

Huff set the best qualifying time from the Chevrolet team but he suffers the same fate as Tarquini after also changing his engine. Despite qualifying 16th he will line up at the back of the grid. Team-mates Menu and Larini will begin the race from 17th and 20th.

The ten fastest drivers in the session were covered by only 0.9 seconds.