MELBOURNE (Reuters):

KIMI RAIKKONEN will make his Ferrari debut on pole position in today?s season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

The Finnish ?Iceman? saw off the challenge of McLaren?s double world champion Fernando Alonso to become the first Ferrari driver in 51 years to secure pole in his first appearance for the Italian glamour team.

The last was the late Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio in his home grand prix in 1956.

Alonso, who will make his McLaren debut after winning the Formula One championship for the past two years with Renault, had to make do with second place on the starting grid.

?I think we have a good race package. We are more confident for the race than for qualifying, definitely,? said Raikkonen, successor at Ferrari to retired seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher.

It was the 12th pole position of his career, after 11 with McLaren, andhis first since Italy last year.

BMW Sauber?s Nick Heidfeld shared the second row with McLaren?s 22-year-old British rookie Lewis Hamilton, who continued an outstanding weekend by qualifying fourth for his debut race.

Ferrari?s Brazilian Felipe Massa, winner of the last grand prix of 2006 in Sao Paulo, failed to make the final qualifying session after slowing and pulling over with a gearbox problem. He will start 16th.

Today will be the first season-opener since 1991 without Schumacher on the starting grid but Raikkonen, relaxed and unemotional as ever, has already achieved something the great German never managed.

If he wins today he will do something else, becoming the first Ferrari driver to win on his debut for the team since Briton Nigel Mansell in 1989.

So long as everything works well and we don?t have any problems, we should be pretty okay, he said. ?But so many things can happen and usually the race here is quite a funny one.

So we will do the best that we can and hopefully we can win, he added.