Raikkonen prays for his chance to put the record straight

Depending on the weather, a real race might just light up Spa-Francorchamps today.

If it rains, you can probably forget it. Even though Michelin has brought some improved wet-weather tyres here, the odds are stacked in favour of Michael Schumacher toddling home to his 63rd career victory and his sixth in the Belgian GP (the seventh if you count the 1994 race, which he won only to be disqualified when his Benetton's wooden undercar plank failed technical inspection).

If it's very hot, which is unlikely though not impossible in the Hautes Fagnes region of Belgium, the same will apply. But if, like Goldilocks' favourite porridge, the conditions are just right, Kimi Raikkonen has a chance of avenging the mistake that cost him his maiden victory in the French GP five weeks ago.

The 22-year-old Finn, who only two seasons ago was racing in the junior Formula Renault championship, has been the only man to take the fight to Schumacher this weekend. Quickest in free practice on Friday and on Saturday morning, his best qualifying effort for West McLaren Mercedes left him less than half a second shy of Schumacher's Ferrari as the world champion annexed the 48th pole position of a career which began here 11 years ago.

But for a moment when he put a wheel in the dirt in the mid-section of the lap, Raikkonen might have got closer still. "If you look at the sector times I just got a bit of traffic and sand on the mid-sector on my last run," he said nonchalantly, "but it is still my best qualifying so far, so it is pretty good. I was just pushing quite hard and I got a little bit out of shape. It was a couple of corners after that when I got the sand on the circuit, but it doesn't really matter."

On this ultra-fast track BMW Williams had been expected to pose the strongest challenge to Ferrari, after Juan Pablo Montoya had taken pole position here last year. But the Anglo-German cars were not quick enough. "We were expecting to do a little better," admitted the team's technical director, Patrick Head, from whom such a comment is tantamount to a declaration of major disappointment. But like David Coulthard, who on paper was blown off by his upstart team-mate, both BMW Williams drivers chose the harder Michelin tyre option. While slower in qualifying, it should be more durable in race conditions. At times, Raikkonen's tyres showed signs of blistering in yesterday's warm temperatures.

"This is not at all the qualifying that I expected here," a disappointed Montoya said after struggling to get his car as well-balanced as team-mate Ralf Schumacher's. While the German was fourth fastest, the Colombian lost his chance of beating him when Raikkonen inadvertently used the old pit-road entrance as he completed a slowing-down lap and baulked him.

This is a crucial weekend for organisers of the race, held on a circuit that drivers love and whose Eau Rouge corner epitomises the challenges of the sport. Ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone is tired of fighting with the Belgians, and is looking for European races to lose as F1 prepares to go to Bahrain, China and Turkey. "I don't know what's going on with the Belgian politicians," he told Autosport magazine. "Most countries support their GP. It seems as if they don't want their GP any more."

It will be a tragedy if Spa loses the Grand Prix. However, the Belgians did nothing for their case by employing security guards of the calibre of one goon who set his unmuzzled Rottweiler on an accredited photographer, without provocation.

Such matters were not of immediate concern to the Orange Arrows team, as another chapter of their saga of trouble was written. The cars reappeared after missing the Hungarian race a fortnight ago, only to disappear again overnight on Friday when a rescue deal with a new American investor could not be completed in time.

Nor did Spa provide quite the fairy tale Anthony Davidson had hoped for after his excellent debut in Hungary. On a circuit he knows, he qualified his Minardi six-tenths of a second slower than his team-mate, Mark Webber.

Traditionally, McLaren race better than they qualify, while BMW Williams qualify better than they race. Ferrari, however, have a consistent level of performance. Given such dominance, the chances of the GP being as gripping as yesterday's Formula 3000 race – in which Giorgio Pantano beat Sebastien Bourdais and Ricardo Sperafico after a racelong duel – are doubtful. But when you watch three young racers in identical cars duelling cleanly throughout and finishing within a second of one another on the greatest circuit in the world, it's hard not to live in hope.