Kimi Raikkonen, who won the Spanish Grand Prix two weeks ago, did it again this afternoon on the streets of Monte Carlo. The McLaren driver grabbed the provisional pole with a lap of one minute, 13.644 seconds.
"It is important to be on pole or on the front row here so I am delighted," said Raikkonen.
"I think this is the best car I have ever driven here so I was confident we could have a good week and so far it has gone well. In Monaco anything can happen, so we need to do the best we can and hopefully try to win the race."
Formula One points leader Fernando Alonso was second with a time of 1:14.125.
Mark Webber (1:14.584) and Alonso's Renault teammate Giancarlo Fisichella (1:14.783) will start in row two.
It was another bad day for the Ferraris who were more than two seconds off the pace. Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher qualified 10th and 11th, respectively.
"This was definitely not a good session for us and obviously I am disappointed," said Schumacher.
The session was red-flagged for more than 20 minutes after a serious crash by Toyota's Ralf Schumacher in Tabac.
Final qualifying is set for Sunday morning and the race is scheduled to begin four hours later. It may be the last two-day qualifying session this year. The Federation Internationale De L'Automobile (FIA) said all 10 teams had unanimously agreed to change qualifying format. The proposal is for a single qualifying session on Saturday afternoon with drivers each having a single timed lap.