Panasonic Toyota Racing achieved its best combined qualifying performance of the season ahead of tomorrow's French Grand Prix, round 11 of the 2006 Formula 1 World Championship.

Jarno Trulli lapped the 4.411km Magny Cours circuit in 1m16.036s, just half a second behind the pole position time and will start fourth on the grid, equalling his season best effort at the Canadian Grand Prix a month ago. Team mate Ralf Schumacher is just 0.06s behind and starts in fifth place, beating his sixth place starts in Melbourne, Imola and Barcelona.

"The car is looking very competitive at the moment and I actually made a couple of mistakes on my best lap and so could have been even quicker," Trulli admitted. "The whole team has worked very hard and it is great to get both cars into the top five and I'm looking forward to a strong race. A special thank you also to Bridgestone, because it looks as if the tyres are very competitive here."

The Toyota TF106Bs have small aerodynamic and suspension modifications at Magny Cours, while Ralf Schumacher also has an updated Toyota V8 as Jarno sees out the two-race engine cycle of his previous version.

"The whole package has been strong since the start of the weekend," Schumacher said, "and taking into account the strategy we are running, it could be an interesting race."

Michael Schumacher took his 68th pole position for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro with a lap in 1m15.492s and team mate Felipe Massa will start alongside him on 1m15.510s. Third quickest is defending champion Fernando Alonso (1m15.785s) with the first of the Mild Seven Renaults.

Behind the two Toyota TF106Bs, Kimi Raikkonen (1m16.628s) is sixth with the first of the Team McLaren Mercedes cars, ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella's Renault (1m16.345s) and Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa, who has replaced Juan Pablo Montoya in the second McLaren Mercedes after the Colombian driver signed a five-year NASCAR contract and subsequently split with his team. Nico Rosberg's Williams Cosworth (1m18.272s) and David Coulthard's Red Bull (1m18.663s) completed the top 10 qualifiers.

The qualifying regulations have undergone a small change in France, with the third session reduced from 20 minutes to 15 minutes duration. The drivers suggest that the change might see some different first stint strategies and, with a short pit lane, Magny Cours often witnesses some three-stop and, once recently, even a four-stop strategy!

Senior General Manager Chassis, Pascal Vasselon, said: "Everything has run smoothly for us so far, with the cars performing very consistently from first thing Friday morning. Since we introduced the TF106B in Monaco we have made consistent improvements to the aerodynamic package and now we are reaping the rewards. The tyres are equally consistent and showing good performance over both longer runs and on one lap. Hopefully we can ve a strong race tomorrow.