Trulli was fastest until the dying moments of today’s low-fuel first qualifying session at Sakhir, when he was pipped by Malaysian winner and current world championship leader Fernando Alonso. The Spanish Mild Seven Renault F1 Team driver lapped in 1m29.848s while Trulli stopped the clock in 1m29.993s. So competitive is the 2005 grid that the first ten drivers were covered by a little over a second.

Ralf Schumacher, meanwhile, lost time in Turn 8 and the German now heads into Sunday’s full tank second qualifying session in 11th position after a lap in 1m30.952s.

The Bahrain circuit is built in the middle of the desert and sand, not unnaturally, can cause grip problems. This was partially addressed by using a special high grip asphalt in the construction of the track but despite the speed of both TF105s oversteer continued to be a problem for both Toyota drivers and many others in Saturday morning’s free practice sessions.

Trulli, however, once again pulled a super qualifying lap out of the bag even though he claimed he was not driving at 100%.

“Obviously it’s qualifying and you push hard,” the Italian said, “but I did not have total confidence in the car to push to the absolute maximum. You pay a big penalty for making a mistake and I had that in mind. In the end I missed the provisional pole by just over a tenth of a second and it was not one particular place, but a little bit everywhere. Obviously you always hope for pole but being realistic it would be nice to be on the front row after the second session tomorrow. It’s going to be a tough race. The second Renault will be coming through and Michael Schumacher is quick again in the new Ferrari.”

Schumacher Jr, meanwhile, admitted to frustration: “That was disappointing. In the morning’s final timed session I was second quickest overall, the car and the tyres were working well and I was confident I could repeat that level of performance in qualifying. Unfortunately I lost almost a second due to oversteer at the entry to Turn 8, which puts me back into 11th place. I will be working hard to make up some places in tomorrow morning’s second session.”

Behind Alonso and Trulli, Michael Schumacher (1m30.327s) was third quickest for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro on the debut of the new F2005 chassis, Nick Heidfeld (1m30.390s) was fourth for the BMW Williams F1 Team, and Giancarlo Fisichella (1m30.445s) and Mark Webber (1m30.592s) completed the top six in the second Renault and Williams chassis respectively.

Panasonic Toyota Racing’s Technical Director Chassis, Mike Gascoyne, reflected the much higher levels of expectation in the team when he said that although second is obviously good, the team now goes into qualifying sessions hoping for even more.

“Jarno was not entirely happy with the balance,” Gascoyne admitted, “and while it is much more agreeable to be unhappy and second rather than unhappy and at the back we do now have the capability to challenge at the very front. Ralf lost 0.7-0.8s under braking in one corner, which was a shame because I think he could have been third, but I’m sure we’ll pick up places tomorrow. The aim will be to consolidate Jarno’s front row and then look ahead to what will hopefully be another strong race for both drivers.”