The 25-year-old from Sao Paulo, in a Ferrari, clocked the fastest time in the third mini-section of the session of one minute and 21.421 seconds to outpace 25-year-old Spaniard Alonso by just three-hundredths of a second.

It was Massa's third successive pole and the sixth of his career and he will start Sunday's race at the Circuit de Catalunya alongside the local hope from Oviedo who looked sure of the prime starting spot until the final seconds.

Then, after Massa had already clocked his best time of the part-session, Alonso was on his final flying lap and unable to beat his rival's time, much to the dismay of a big flag-waving crowd.

Massa's Ferrari teammate Finn Kimi Raikkonen was third fastest ahead of Alonso's McLaren Mercedes-Benz team-mate British rookie Lewis Hamilton, 22, who was fourth fastest.

Poland's Robert Kubica was fifth in a BMW ahead of Italian Jarno Trulli in a Toyota, German Nick Heidfeld in the second BMW, Finn Keikki Kovalainen in a Renault, Briton David Coulthard in a Red Bull and Italian Giancarlo Fisichella in the second Renault.

The session began again in hot and dry conditions with the air temperature recorded at 27 degrees Celsius and the track at 48. This meant virtually ideal conditions for the teams and the spectators on a day when there were chaotic long queues outside the circuit during the morning.

Once the action started, the usual suspects soon dominated proceedings with Hamilton, who was fastest in the morning's fastest practice session ahead of his McLaren team-mate Alonso, among the pace-setters.

The first part of qualifying saw the removal of the slowest six drivers and it was a surprise that these included German Ralf Schumacher in his Toyota, Austrian Alex Wurz in a Williams and Australian Mark Webber in his Red Bull.

They joined Adrian Sutil of Germany in a Spyker, his Dutch teammate Christijan Albers and American Scott Speed of Toro Rosso among those men forced to start from the back rows of the grid.

Webber's failure was particularly disappointing because his teammate veteran Briton David Coulthard had performed strongly and followed up his rapid performance in the morning session by ensuring himself of a place in the top ten in the afternoon. The second mini-session, to remove the next six drivers, took out German Nico Rosberg of Williams, Brazilian Rubens Barrichello and his Honda teammate Briton Jenson Button, Japan's Takuma Sato of Super Aguri, his teammate Briton Anthony Davidson and Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi of Toro Rosso.

There were few incidents up to this time though Davidson went off the circuit and on to the grass at turn three, Albers did the same at turn nine and Sato at turn 11.