Massa wins fight for pole in Singapore

By Jan Lin

Marina Bay Street Circuit, September 28, 2008 – Like a true ‘Street Fighter’, Ferrari's Felipe Massa delivered a killer blow with his impressive lap time of 1 minute 44.801 seconds to knock out the 9 other drivers vying for the elusive pole position at the qualifying session of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix last night.

Massa's huge win at the 2008 European Grand Prix held at the Valencia Street Circuit last month has since cemented his position as the F1 street circuit specialist. In Valencia, Massa took the chequered flag 5.611 seconds ahead of runner-up Lewis Hamilton. In similar fashion last night, the Brazilian stormed to pole position with a clear 0.664 seconds ahead of the second-placed Hamilton.

The McLaren driver was extremely fortunate to have scraped into the final qualifying session with his 1 minute 44.932 seconds lap that had placed him 10th in the second qualifying session (Q2). Only the top 10 drivers in Q2 were eligible to race for pole in the third and final qualifying session (Q3). Despite the Q2 scare, Hamilton bounced back in Q3 to narrowly pip Kimi Raikkonen's time of 1 minute 45.617 seconds in a Ferrari.

Raikkonen, who was first in Q1 and second in Q2, was far from beaten by his third place finish in Q3. “All things considered, this is a good result and I am reasonably happy. Third place is fine," the Finnish said. “Of course, you always hope to be in front of everyone but third place is not so bad. In Q1 and Q2, the car worked very well on the soft tyres but in Q3, on the harder ones, it was not so good anymore.”

Disappointment was reserved entirely for Renault's Fernando Alonso, who will start the race tomorrow far from the starting line as technical difficulties forced him to retire before completing a lap in Q2 last night. Alonso was 6th after Q1 but his R28 suddenly struggled from sending and receiving fuel during Q2 and was consequently evicted from the session.

The Spaniard was visibly distraught as he walked away from his car and he revealed at a post-session interview: “It's a really big disappointment because we had a real chance to do something special today, perhaps not pole position but to at least qualify in the top four. Our weekend was going really well and we had big hopes for this evening.”

Alonso had in fact had topped two of the three practice sessions held on Friday and Saturday but in an honest assessment about his podium chances tomorrow, he said: “I know that starting in the middle of the pack will make for a difficult race and I will need a miracle with the strategy to be able to make progress on this street circuit where it looks difficult to overtake.”

The difficulty in overtaking at the Marina Bay Street Circuit is a promising sign for the one taking pole position - Felipe Massa - who considers his qualifying session in Singapore as “one of the best qualifying” for him and his team this season. When asked to explain the huge 0.664 seconds margin, Massa credited the success to having a “good car” and a team that has done a “great job”.

“I think it was a great lap, a perfect lap,” said Massa. "It always puts you in a good position when you can do everything perfectly, especially when you have a good car. The car was so good here during these two days and I think we went into qualifying at the right moment to take the maximum out of the car. I think I did a good job. The team did a great job as well preparing the weekend.”

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