MONTE CARLO (Monaco), May 21: McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen set up a Monaco Grand Prix street fight with Renault’s championship leader Fernando Alonso on Saturday after seizing provisional pole position. Barring mishap in Sunday’s final session, Formula One’s flying Finn will start his third successive race from the top slot after lapping nearly half a second faster than his Spanish rival.

Australian Mark Webber was a surprising third for Williams, but still a massive 0.940 slower than Raikkonen, with Alonso’s Italian team mate Giancarlo Fisichella fourth on one of his favourite tracks.

With overtaking almost impossible on the winding street circuit, Ferrari’s seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher faced a frustrating weekend.

The German, without a win for six races, lapped two and a half seconds slower than Raikkonen and was 11th.

The session was halted for 15 minutes with three cars still to run when Ralf Schumacher’s Toyota clipped a barrier and speared across the track. The German was unhurt but oil and debris was scattered across the track.

Alonso has won three of the five races so far and has a 27-point advantage over third placed Raikkonen in the championship.

Italian Jarno Trulli, who won last year for Renault, went out after his Toyota team mate’s crash and was able to set only the seventh fastest time.

Canadian Jacques Villeneuve was comfortably quicker than Sauber team mate Felipe Massa for a change, while tiny Minardi had reason to celebrate after throwing off their tag as the slowest team in Formula One.

Both Austrian Patrick Friesacher and Dutch driver Christijan Albers were faster than the Toyota-powered Jordans of Indian Narain Karthikeyan and Portugal’s Tiago Monteiro.—Reuters