Kimi Raikkonen on Saturday

Barcelona: Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari edged Renault’s Fernando Alonso on Saturday to take pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix. Giancarlo Fisichella will be 19th on the grid, just ahead of teammate Adrian Sutil after both Force India drivers experienced a difficult qualifying session that failed to deliver on the team’s earlier weekend promise.

Raikkonen will start first on the grid for the 15th time on Sunday after going around in 1 minute, 21.813 seconds — just under one-tenth of a second faster than Alonso.

Raikkonen, the defending world champion who leads the championship standings and won the Malaysian GP, earned his first pole of the season. The last seven pole sitters have won at Barcelona, and only four have failed to win in 17 races here.

“We have a good chance for tomorrow (Sunday). It’s a good place to be,” said the Finn, who won here in 2005. “I’ve been more happy with the car than I have been in the previous races.”

Alonso, a two-time world champion, knew he was on the front row when he crossed the line with his time of 1:21.904, since Raikkonen was the only driver still to finish.

“It’s amazing to do this in front of my Spanish fans,” said Alonso, a Spaniard who won here in 2006. “It’s something we didn’t expect. Not in this race but for the whole season.”

For Force India, Fisichella struggled with reduced grip levels on his qualifying runs and was disappointed to miss the cut for the second qualifying session, while Sutil’s second flying lap was interrupted by traffic and, on what was to be his final run of the day, he reported a brake problem.

“I had some problems on my first run with reduced grip and it was difficult to make the tyres work properly so now we will see what will happen in the race,” Fisichella said.

Sutil too rued missing what could have been his best qualifying session this season.

“The first run was ok, I did a 23.1 that was quite good for a first lap. On the second run the grip level was much better and I had a good feeling, but then into turn three there was a car coming out of the pits. I lost all the down force on my final run… My brake disc seemed to have developed a problem and it was quite difficult to get the car to slow down for corners,” he said.

Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne, however, has not lost hope.

“Qualifying and really the whole of today (Saturday) has been very disappointing for the team... It is very difficult to understand why we have struggled so much with the tyres, but we have to work on it tonight and look to have a better race on Sunday,” he said.

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, who is coming off a victory at the Bahrain GP, will start from third after clocking 1:22.058 on his final lap. BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica, coming off his first pole at Bahrain, had Saturday’s fourth best qualifying time.

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton rounded out the top five with a time of 1:22.096 to start one place ahead of teammate Heikki Kovalainen.

It is the first time since 1983 that four different drivers have held pole position at the season’s first four races. Alonso was boosted by a sea of blue and yellow Asturias flags around the Circuit de Catalunya track, as he hails from the northern Spanish province that shares the same colours as the Renault team.

“It’s unbelievable. It’s difficult to describe,” the 26-year-old Alonso said. “The team did an incredible job to improve the car. Second place today (Saturday) is far more than we expected for the whole weekend so the job is nearly there.” Alonso, who returned to Renault this year after a turbulent season at McLaren, won here in 2006 on his way to a second straight world championship.

Massa looked slightly disappointed.

The Brazilian driver is looking to emulate 2007 when he won at Barcelona on the heels of a victory at Bahrain.

“I put the lap together at the wrong moment,” said Massa, who started on pole last year. “I put it together on the first one but it was a little too early. In the small time you lose, you can lose one or two positions.”