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Felipe
Massa's name appears in first place at the end of the
first qualifying session for the first Singapore Grand
Prix, the first ever night race in the history of
Formula 1, thus ensuring another unique honour for
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro. The Brazilian put together
the perfect lap, setting the fastest times in all three
sectors to secure his fourteenth pole position. It was a
very impressive performance on a track that he described
as being tougher even than that other famous street
track, Monaco. Kimi Raikkonen will start behind his
team-mate, in third place, which is also a good showing
considering that the Finn had set-up problems on his
F2008 yesterday and lost track time in today's free
practice session with a technical problem. Splitting the
two red cars and joining Felipe on the front row is the
man who leads him by one point in the championship,
Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren-Mercedes. Kimi shares the
second row with the BMW-Sauber of Robert Kubica, while
row 3 sees the second McLaren-Mercedes of Heikki
Kovalainen in fifth spot with the BMW-Sauber of Nick
Heidfeld next to him in sixth.
Apart from dealing with the unusual timetable at this
event, Kimi and Felipe have also been kept busier than
usual with sponsor and media work. The high level of
interest generated by Formula 1's first ever night race
has also seen our partners capitalising on the unique
occasion. Even before this weekend, Kimi was busy,
having visited Abu Dhabi for functions involving our
partners, Mubadala and Etihad and the Finn also visited
Yas Island, the site of a Ferrari Theme Park, due to
open to the public in early 2010. Apart from that, the
latest road car to come out of Maranello, the
California, was launched in Singapore on Wednesday and
both drivers were involved in the event at a hotel in
the city. There have been plenty of Fiats on track here
too, with a fleet of Fiat Cinquentos being used for a
Media "Race," with all the cars personally autographed
by the two Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro drivers.
Tomorrow's inaugural Singapore Grand Prix gets underway
at eight in the evening local time: it will be a long
race with 61 laps and an average lap speed of around one
minute and forty five seconds. The heat, the humidity,
the bumps, the tricky nature of the circuit, the
floodlit track and pit lane will all add up to one of
the toughest challenges of the season for the cars, the
drivers and the team. With the championship battle so
close, the result will also be a very important one.
Seventh pole position of the season for Scuderia Ferrari
Marlboro, the fifth thanks to Felipe Massa, while Kimi
Raikkonen took third place: that's the outcome of
qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix, the first in
the history of Formula 1 to be held at night. The
Brazilian driver netted the fourteenth top spot starting
position of his career, and it takes the Scuderia's pole
tally in the Formula 1 World Championship to 202. "A
great result this evening, but it is only the first step
towards achieving our objective for this weekend,"
commented the Team Principal of the Gestione Sportiva,
Stefano Domenicali. "Felipe produced a fantastic lap and
Kimi also did a very good job. The F2008 confirmed that
it is competitive in qualifying, with half this season's
poles going to our drivers. Now we must not get over
excited but keep our feet firmly on the ground. Tomorrow
should see a long race, riddled with difficulties. In
order to win, everything will need to be executed
perfectly, right down to the smallest detail."
Felipe Massa: "I did a fantastic lap in a
fantastic car and it was possibly my best qualifying of
the season. Given my margin over the others, with
hindsight it's easy to say maybe I could have run with
slightly more fuel, but we firmly believe we have a very
competitive strategy. At every corner, at every braking
point I tried to get the most out of the car and I think
I managed it. The harder tyres have seemed better since
yesterday and that's why we went in that direction. The
track is very difficult and requires total concentration
lap after lap because there is no room for error: it's
much harder here than in Monaco. I'm pleased to be the
first driver to be on pole for this Grand Prix, taking
place in such a special and unusual atmosphere: I hope I
can do even better tomorrow."
Kimi Raikkonen: "All things considered, this is a
good result. 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. Today, it
was difficult to choose the best type of tyre for the
decisive session because the performance difference over
the first lap was not so great. I probably suffered a
bit because of the time lost this morning with a
technical problem which ended my free practice session
ahead of time. The track is very demanding with many
places where you really feel the bumps and you have to
maintain concentration all the time. Tomorrow I will do
my best for myself and for the team."
Luca Baldisserri: "It was an exciting qualifying
session, set against a really unique backdrop. On a
track with so many twists and turns, Felipe was the only
one to put together the perfect lap in Q3 and his gap to
the others is the proof of that. Kimi did a good job,
given his set-up problems yesterday and technical issues
this morning which cost him a lot of valuable track
time. Tomorrow, we must not lose concentration for a
moment because it's going to be a very long race full of
potential pitfalls."
Qualifying session
F. Massa: 1st 1.44.801 6 laps chassis 269
K. Raikkonen: 3rd 1.45.617 6 laps chassis 271
Weather: air temperature 29 °C, track temperature 32 °C,
partially cloudy.
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