session was led by Panis who recorded a time of 1 minute and 13.457 seconds, ahead of Michael Schumacher, Trulli, Coulthard, Montoya, Räikkönen, Barrichello, Webber, Ralf Schumacher and Alonso. Several competitors spun during the session; none sustained damage to their cars. Räikkönen paced a fifteen-minute warm-up session that took place before the second qualifying session with a lap of 1 minute and 13.886 seconds. Barrichello, Michael Schumacher, Coulthard, Montoya, Webber, Button, Ralf Schumacher, Villeneuve and Heidfeld were second to tenth. Qualifying The torrential rain observed in practice prompted several drivers to express concerns they would lose control of their vehicles and crash. Around twenty minutes before the first qualifying session, Coulthard, a senior member of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association, Trulli and Michael Schumacher wrote a petition mandating the FIA cancel the session if there was no improvement in the track conditions. The petition was signed by a majority of drivers; it was later disregarded after it was unable to be sent to everyone in time and race officials had deemed the circuit safe to drive on after the rain tapered off before qualifying commenced. Jacques Villeneuve of BAR said the petition was detrimental to Formula One, "What would it bring to Formula One for us not to go and qualify? People would think that we are just a bunch of sissies. We can't do that. We are paid a whole lot of money and it would be an insult to the fans." There were two one-hour qualifying sessions, one on both Friday and Saturday afternoons. The World Drivers' Championship standings set the first session's running order (first to last) with the second run in reverse of the first session times (slowest to fastest). Each competitor recorded one timed lap in each session and the starting order was determined by the second session's quickest laps. The level of standing water fluctuated during the session. Webber took provisional pole position on a drying track with a 1-minute and 23.249 seconds lap. He was 0.138 seconds faster than Barrichello in second, who had pole until Webber's lap. Räikkönen, the first driver to set a lap, was third and his teammate Coulthard, fourth, made a driver error at Bico de Pato corner. Michael Schumacher aquaplaned shortly after leaving the pit lane and took fifth. Panis's Toyota was not setup for the wet-weather conditions and took sixth. Villeneuve was seventh; Pizzonia, eighth, drove the