Perhaps two day Grands Prix are a good idea! Well, Friday did previous little to contribute to Saturday's action at the San Marino Grand Prix, but we did have a cracking qualifying session. Rubens did such a great job - in the spare car - and yet Michael is still able to come along and squeeze onto pole by even the tiniest of margins.

Imagine how it feels to be Michael's teammate. You do your every best, in slightly adverse conditions, and you finally beat him. You're on top of the world, doing everything that you can and you've finally beaten him. And then he comes along and pips you right at the end.

The trouble is that he doesn't just do it once, he does it over and over again. On Sunday, he becomes the longest serving Ferrari Grand Prix of all time, beating Gerhard Berger's record of 96 participations for the Scuderia (say Ferrari). In qualifying, however, he has set his third pole of the year for Ferrari, the second for himself, the fourth for Ferrari at the San Marino Grand Prix, the 151st in this team's history and 45th in his own career.

I do sometimes wonder if we shall look back at this era as being a phenomenal one in the history of Grand Prix racing. I put this to Phil Hill last night in Modena, where I had gone to talk to some American fans who had come over for the race. He agreed, that this is a very special era that we are experiencing.

What we really regret, I suppose, is that Michael doesn't have an established legend to beat. Sure, he raced against Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, but only in the early stages of his career. Even in computer games, however, you can't play a 'virtual Grand Prix legends' where legends actually race against one another. So far, we haven't been able to pitch Tazio Nuvolari against Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna.

So we have to live with this extraordinary situation whereby one man is making his own history. When Ayrton Senna was doing the same, as was Alain Prost (whom I believe made his name in the turbo era), we weren't really aware of it. Perhaps we should give credit where it is due, and not appreciate it five years after he's gone.

It was a pretty special pole and once again, I asked just where that little bit extra comes from. I've seen all 45 of his poles, and so often he pulls something special out of the bag. That's what makes him extra special. I'm sure I've sat in this same press room and marveled at Ayrton Senna doing the same thing here. After all, he had an amazing record of seven consecutive pole positions here at Imola. Those things kind of stick in the mind, don't they?

So we have a two-by-two grid after a strange weekend so far. When the shutters clattered open this morning, we were confronted by blue sky - which we weren't expecting. It was meant to be as lousy as it's been for the last four days or so. And then it's meant to be changeable tomorrow. I think it could well be changeable for the race. After all, the revised weather forecast was right this afternoon, because it rained just after the Formula 3000 race - which will have washed away some of the grip.

So we could well be back to square one again for the race. I feel sorry for the Michelin people in the wet. They really don't seem to have much fun, the cars seem badly balanced and it's not easy. But then Michelin have known that for a while, and however brave a face Pierre Dupasquier puts on his predicament, it doesn't seem to make the cars much more competitive.

So they, like the spectators, perhaps, will be praying for a dry day tomorrow. In fact racing drivers and tele-spectators are quite often diametrically opposed. Racing drivers like things to be consistent. You and I, of course, don't. We prefer lots of inconsistencies to spice up life. They prefer to know what's coming. They may not get their wish tomorrow.

Meanwhile off-track action hasn't been that interesting. Max Mosley held a long press conference, the transcript of which you can find elsewhere on pitpass. The manufacturers held their meeting and revealed that the Kirch Group had approached them, with a view to buying the commercial rights to Formula One. They also revealed that they had been in touch with 23 circuits and promoters which sounds interesting.

But there doesn't sound as though there is going to be much movement on either front for the moment, so we all wait for developments. However, I suspect that we are going to have quite enough excitement in the race itself. Legends or not, I'm not going to make any predictions for the moment!

To read Bob's Car-by-Car analysis... click here
To read Bob's Friday report... click here
To read Bob's previous columns... click here