The six-time world champion expected a battle in today’s qualifying but in the end breezed to the 59th pole position of his career.

His lap of one minute 15.022 seconds was over half a second faster than nearest challenger Juan Pablo Montoya while BAR’s hopes were hit when Button ran wide across the track, although his team-mate Takuma Sato claimed a career-best third.

Schumacher was taken aback by the ease in which he took top spot.

The Ferrari driver said: “The threat from BAR was very high because we have seen their testing times so we knew how quick they are – we were warned.

“I am a bit surprised to be honest because we saw what BAR had done in the tests. We were very impressed with their pace so to be where we are and be that much in front of those guys is a bit of a surprise but we’ll happily take it.”

Schumacher lines up on the front row tomorrow alongside Montoya, with whom he controversially clashed last time out at Imola.

Montoya accused Schumacher of deliberately running him off the road in the first-lap incident and claimed Formula One officials were scared to punish the German’s misdemeanours.

But Schumacher is relaxed ahead of another potential showdown with the Colombian.

“We had an interesting fight at Imola and we will find out whether we have another one tomorrow,” he said.

“It’s part of racing to have a battle and I have no problems having another one.”

Montoya was simply happy to claim Williams’ first front-row start of a difficult season.

He said: “Yesterday was really, really, really bad. It was very hard to drive the car but we did some changes and straight away it helped.

“I am very pleased, we’ll see what happens tomorrow. I think we are looking pretty good, we’ll see how we compare against the Bridgestones but we are looking good.”

Button was frustrated with himself after seeing his chances of a second straight pole position vanish when he ran wide on his flying lap.

The Englishman had looked set for a quick time but instead had to make do with 14th place, with his hopes of a maiden win now in tatters.

He said: “Nobody likes making mistakes, it’s not good. The lap was looking very good, we had a lot more grip than pre-qualifying but as I got to the apex I don’t know if it was wind or just the car balance but I got a snap of oversteer.

“I was very angry but there’s no use getting worked up about it – it’s where we are and we can’t change that.

“We’ve just got to work on the set-up and we’ve got to take some points away, that’s our aim.”

Fellow Briton David Coulthard also endured a difficult session, although after a miserable start to the season which has seen his McLaren team claim a paltry five points, he is having to get used to being off the pace.

The Scotsman will start from 10th and admitted he is only hoping for a point or two from tomorrow’s race.

“Maybe we’ll move forward a little bit but realistically the guys at the front are all there genuinely, maybe one or two are light on fuel but the rest aren’t,” he said.

“Obviously it’s quite tricky from my position – we are in amongst the traffic.

“It’s difficult getting results at the moment, we’ve just got to wait for the updated car and hopefully that will bring a step forward.

“Other than the Toyotas, who might have run a bit light, and Jaguar, which might fade away, they are all there because of pace so maybe we are looking at seventh or eighth, something like that.”