For the first time since the Bahrain Grand Prix, the season's opening race, Panasonic Toyota Racing did not have a car in the Top 10 qualifying shoot out at the Italian Grand Prix.

Jarno Trulli will start tomorrow's Monza race 11th on the grid with a lap in 1m21.924s, while team mate Ralf Schumacher lines up two places further back on 1m22.280s. These times were set in the low-fuel second session of qualifying and despite not making it into Q3, Trulli's time was only 0.7s away from the fastest of the session, illustrating the competitiveness of the Monza grid.

"We did not seem to have quite enough top speed in morning practice," Trulli said, "and although it was better in qualifying I was still not quite quick enough to make it through. Monza is a home race for me and I always enjoy racing in front of my own fans, even if the results have not been too kind to me. We do have freedom of strategy for the race and we will be having a close look at the best approach."

Many of the teams cut down on their practice running in Italy after the recent three-day test at the circuit, but that, for Schumacher, was ended prematurely by a stomach bug. Now fit again, Schumacher said: "At Monza you run a unique low downforce set-up and the balance has not been ideal this weekend. We did have a decent test and so I hope we can establish a good strategy and have a stronger race."

Kimi Raikkonen (1m21.454s) claimed his third pole position of the season, just 0.002s quicker than the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro car of championship-chasing Michael Schumacher. Nick Heidfeld's BMW Sauber (1m21.653s) was third quickest, ahead of Turkish GP winner Felipe Massa (1m21.704s) with the second Ferrari. World Champion Fernando Alonso (1m21.829s) will start the race fifth on the grid, ahead of Jenson Button's Lucky Strike Honda (1m22.011s), Robert Kubica's BMW (1m22.258s), Pedro de la Rosa's McLaren (1m22.280s), Rubens Barrichello's Honda (1m22.787s) and Giancarlo Fisichella's Renault (1m23.175s).

Senior General Manager, Chassis, Pascal Vasselon, said: "It is the first time since Bahrain that we have not made it through to the final session of qualifying but the times here are very close and Jarno was just 0.7s from the Ferrari pace at the front of the field. We have new aerodynamic solutions here for the low downforce track and we will have a careful look at all the data before deciding on the optimum approach to the race. The grid positions may not be what we were aiming at but we have been competitive at recent races and we are not giving up our hope of scoring points."