Formula 1: McLaren wiped the floor with Ferrari on their home turf in qualifying, with Fernando Alonso edging out team-mate Lewis Hamilton to take pole for tomorrow's Italian Grand Prix.
Alonso pipped Hamilton by just 0.037secs to clinch his third pole position this season and 17th of his career.
Felipe Massa was the best of the Ferraris as he will start third on the grid ahead of the BMW Sauber of Nick Heidfeld, with Kimi Raikkonen down in fifth, his lowest position since Monaco.
Raikkonen, though, was using the spare car after earlier walking away unharmed from a 200mph crash in final practice, with the Finn virtually destroying the original car.
Superb on-board camera footage with Raikkonen showed the Ferrari veer into a wall along the Curva del Serraglio, one of the fastest parts of the legendary circuit.
His momentum propelled him a full 70 metres - narrowly avoiding two marshals - before he ploughed into a tyre barrier.
The force of the impact was so great the car was buried under a mound of tyres, but they did their job, preventing him from potentially suffering serious injury.
Robert Kubica starts sixth in his BMW Sauber, followed by Heikki Kovalainen for Renault, the Williams of Nico Rosberg, Toyota's Jarno Trulli, with Jenson Button 10th in his Honda.
It is only the second time this season Button has qualified in the top 10, representing a significant improvement for the Briton.
Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber headed those who exited in Q2, with the Australian 11th on the grid ahead of Rubens Barrichello in his Honda, Williams' Alexander Wurz and Anthony Davidson for Super Aguri.
On his home track, Giancarlo Fisichella starts from a season-low 15th, which will hardly enamour Renault boss Flavio Briatore and damages his hopes of staying with the team for next season.
Sebastian Vettel is 16th for Toro Rosso, outperforming team-mate Vitantonio Liuzzi — who is three places behind in 19th — for the first time in three races since joining the team.
Takuma Sato starts 17th for Super Aguri, with Ralf Schumacher 18th for Toyota, and like Fisichella again doing himself few favours of retaining his seat.
Coulthard's qualifying woes this season continued as the veteran Scot will start from 20th, with Q1 culminating in a spin at turn one, which at least meant a short walk back to the garage.
Coulthard took his misfortune in good spirits as he bowed to the crowd after stepping out of the car, although he has now been out-qualified by Webber in 12 of 13 races this year.
Behind him are the lowly Spykers, who despite running their new, improved B-spec cars at this track, again bring up the rear of the field with Adrian Sutil ahead of Sakon Yamamoto.