Heidfeld qualified tenth. Button was the fastest driver not to qualify in the top ten after he was fourth early on. Panis completed one timed lap as he could not extract more performance from his BAR 004 and took 12th. Excess oversteer slowed his teammate Villeneuve in 13th. Salo, 14th, drove cautiously on his first timed lap. A minor fuel pressure fault limited Frentzen in 15th to one untroubled lap. McNish, 16th, had one set of tyres deducted from his qualifying allocation because Toyota mistakenly used one set assigned for the Friday practice sessions on Saturday. A stoppage caught out Bernoldi at the start of his first timed lap and he qualified 17th. Webber took 18th and used wet-weather tyres. The two Jaguar R3 cars had a major aerodynamic deficiency and were 19th and 20th: A rear brake balance slowed Irvine and a handling deficiency saw de la Rosa drive the spare Jaguar. Yoong completed one timed lap for 21st. Five minutes in Sato's spare Jordan EJ12 car stopped before Stewart turn with a hydraulic clutch problem that automatically selected third gear. The session was stopped for eight minutes to allow marshals to move his car. Sato returned to his garage and drove Fisichella's race car but the rain made him more than 107 per cent slower than Barrichello. Post-qualifying After qualifying, the Jordan team principal and owner Eddie Jordan appealed to the stewards to allow Sato to participate in the race because he was under the 107 per cent limit during free practice. They permitted him to start under "exceptional circumstances" as in the case of previous cases affected by changeable weather. Qualifying classification Notes – Takuma Sato set a time 107% slower than the fastest qualifying lap. He was granted permission from the stewards to start the race due to "exceptional circumstances". Warm-up A half-hour warm-up session was held on Sunday morning in variable weather as heavy rain fell before it commenced. Teams used rain tyres and set-up their cars against the weather of the time. With a lap of 1 minute and 41.509 seconds, Michael Schumacher was fastest with teammate Barrichello 1.382 seconds slower in second position. Coulthard, Ralf Schumacher, Montoya, Massa, Heidfeld, Fisichella, Trulli and Irvine made up positions three to ten. With 40 seconds to go, Salo drove off the racing line to allow Barrichello past into Ascari corner. He drove onto a white painted