Schumacher pushed his brother back to third
Grid positions for Sunday's Spanish GP
Michael Schumacher looks a good bet to win his fourth race out of five this season after setting a stunning pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix.
The world champion headed a Ferrari one-two in qualifying at the Circuit de Catalunya, with team-mate Rubens Barrichello also well ahead of the Italian team's closest challengers.
That, surprisingly, was the Williams-BMW of Ralf Schumacher, which popped up in third place after appearing to be off the pace in every session until the one that mattered.
But Ralf was still nearly a second slower than pole, and Williams' chances of beating Ferrari on Sunday afternoon do not look promising.
Irvine demoted
Their best hope is for the temperature to soar, thereby favouring their Michelin tyres.
Others have more serious problems, such as Jaguar driver Eddie Irvine.
The Northern Irishman defied his car's serious aerodynamic shortcomings to secure 15th place.
But he was then found to have been using irregular fuel and has now been ordered to start from the back of the grid.
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On the front row, Barrichello put up a good fight, just as he had at the San Marino Grand Prix two weeks ago.
He was quicker than Schumacher on the first two runs, but the German pulled out the stops with a stunning last-minute lap of one minute 16.364 seconds.
That lap, nearly two seconds faster than last year's pole position, left Barrichello 0.326secs behind, with Ralf 0.6secs behind him.
Schumacher admitted it had not been easy to beat Barrichello - he had to change his set-up to match his team-mate's for his last run.
"We went a bit closer to what Rubens was doing - he seemed to have the better solution and I got in the last run very well.
"I made mistakes on the first two runs. You have to be out at the right moment with the wind gusting around and it didn't seem to be right for the first two runs."
He said he "likes the challenge" of Barrichello pushing him so close.
Barrichello said: "Obviously just like the last time I wish I could have been on pole, but it has been a fair fight.
"It is wonderful just to push each other. It is is quite nice that he is having a harder time this year. I am enjoying that and I think he is too."
A superb effort by Juan Pablo Montoya in the dying seconds put him up to fourth after he had been languishing in the bottom half of the top 10 for much of the afternoon.
He had been forced into the spare Williams after a misfire hit the engine in his race car.
This track was expected to bring McLaren closer to the front, but neither driver could beat the Williams cars, although Kimi Raikkonen was just 0.2secs slower than Ralf Schumacher.
He outqualified team-mate David Coulthard for the second time in a row and the third time in five races this year - and Coulthard was also beaten by Renault driver Jenson Button, who continued his good form this season with sixth place.
Button's team-mate Jarno Trulli struggled with his car for much of qualifying, but a flat-out effort right at the end promoted him to ninth.
Ralf Schumacher admitted he was surprised to be in third place.
"The team did a great job overnight we changed a lot of things on the car and that seemed to improve the situation, we didn't expect to be third here but it worked out."
Leading qualifying times on Saturday for the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya:
1 Michael Schumacher (Ger) Ferrari 1:16.933
2 Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Ferrari 1:17.190
3 Ralf Schumacher (Ger) Williams 1:17.277
4 Juan Pablo Montoya (Col) Williams 1:17.425
5 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) McLaren 1:17.519
6 Jenson Button (GB) Renault 1:17.638
7 David Coulthard (GB) McLaren 1:17.662
8 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) Sauber 1:17.851
9 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Renault 1:17.929
10 Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Ger) Arrows 1:18.121