Saturday's afternoon qualifying session lasted for an hour. Each driver was limited to twelve laps, with the starting order decided by the drivers' fastest laps. During this session, the 107% rule was in effect, which necessitated each driver set a time within 107% of the quickest lap to qualify for the race. The Williams and Ferrari teams chose to experiment with tyre set-ups by using hard compound tyres with the aim of gaining better race performance. Montoya eclipsed the fastest lap speed recorded in Formula One (259.01 km/h, set by Keke Rosberg at the 1985 British Grand Prix) to clinch his seventh pole position of the season with a time of one minute and 20.264 seconds and a speed of 259.83 km/h. His record would remain unbroken until 2018, when Kimi Räikkönen set a faster pole lap. As of August 2020, Räikkönen's record still stands. He felt his lap time was "pretty good" and gained a large amount of time at the Lesmo corners which contributed to a fast middle sector time. Montoya was joined on the front row of the grid by Michael Schumacher who was 0.257 seconds off Montoya's pace and was happy with his lap time despite him taking time to get optimum tyre temperature. Ralf Schumacher qualified third and reported making a mistake at the Lesmo corners on his third timed run. Barrichello set his fastest lap time on his second timed run to secure fourth position. Räikkonen initially secured fifth in his McLaren but was stripped of his fastest qualifying lap as a result of a collision with Sato's Jordan at the Roggia chicane, which caused the session to be stopped temporarily; as a result, Irvine in the Jaguar was promoted to fifth with Räikkonen sixth. Coulthard took seventh in the other McLaren, with de la Rosa alongside him on the fourth row in the second Jaguar. Villeneuve took ninth in the BAR, with Salo rounding out the top ten in his Toyota.