Kimi Raikkonen snatched pole position from Fernando Alonso in the dying moments of a remarkable qualifying session for tomorrow's Spanish Grand Prix.

Alonso stunned and thrilled his home crowd at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya when he sat on provisional pole in his Renault after the clock had counted down to zero.

But with only one man on track behind him in Raikkonen, the world champion became the fourth different driver in four races this season to snatch pole ahead of the 66-lap race.

All season long to date Alonso has bemoaned the performance of his car as Renault have been a long way off the pace set by Ferrari, McLaren and BMW Sauber.

The Spaniard has previously slated his chances of a podium finish, never mind a race win, but in front of his home crowd he produced to send his army of fans into raptures.

It remains to be seen what fuel Alonso had on board, but he will start from second on the grid, missing out by 0.091secs to the Ferrari star, who set a pole lap time of one minute 21.813secs.

Behind the duo on the second row of the grid come team-mate Felipe Massa and the BMW Sauber of Robert Kubica, with Lewis Hamilton a lowly fifth, his worst position of the season.

Hamilton has McLaren team-mate Heikki Kovalainen behind him in sixth, with the Red Bull of Mark Webber seventh and Jarno Trulli eighth in his Toyota.

BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld is ninth, with the second Renault of Nelson Piquet in the top 10 for the first time this season.

Honda's Rubens Barrichello will start from 11th, followed by the Williams of Kazuki Nakajima, surprisingly out-qualifying Nico Rosberg for the first time this year.

Rosberg is currently enduring a see-saw season as this year he has qualified seventh, 16th, eighth and 15th respectively throughout the four grands prix to date.

Jenson Button is 13th in his Honda, with Toyota's Timo Glock 14th, whilst Sebastien Bourdais is 16th for Toro Rosso.

For the second successive race Coulthard again failed to qualify for Q2, finishing 17th and doing his chances of another contract beyond this season considerable harm.

The veteran Scot had expressed his confidence after posting the second quickest time in final practice earlier today.

But that failed to materialise once qualifying started as traffic inevitably played its part as Coulthard started his final bid for a flying lap.

However, it is a mark of how close the qualifying battle is these days in F1 that just 0.7secs separated second-placed Trulli in Q1 to Coulthard.

Behind Coulthard are Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel and the Force India duo of Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil, with the team again failing to achieve their goal of reaching Q2.

Unsurprisingly, Super Aguri duo Anthony Davidson and Takuma Sato will start at the rear of the field, albeit with a degree of consolation for the Briton.

In what could be Super Aguri's last grand prix, Davidson at least outqualified his Japanese team-mate for the first time this year.

The future of the team, who are currently £50million in debt, is set to be resolved at a meeting on Wednesday with engine suppliers Honda.