Life is getting tougher for Scuderia Ferrari, as all design and development energies back in Maranello are being focussed on the 2010 car, leaving the F60 exposed to attack from other cars from teams that are still pursuing 2009 targets and bringing more updates to this final quartet of races.

When a world championship winning team and a world championship winning driver find themselves on the seventh row of the grid in thirteenth spot, as is the case for Kimi Raikkonen, then the situation is obviously very difficult. Giancarlo Fisichella was honest enough to admit that yesterday he felt as though the car was driving him, rather than the other way round, as he qualified in eighteenth place.

The Singapore track is proving to be as difficult as ever to tame, as can be seen by the number of cars spinning or brushing the barriers. In fact, Friday afternoon’s top ten shoot was red flagged with 26 seconds of the session remaining, after Rubens Barrichello had a big crash, from which he emerged thankfully without injury. Fastest at that time and therefore taking pole position, as the session did not resume, was Lewis Hamilton for McLaren-Mercedes. Starting alongside him for today’s 61 lap Singapore Grand Prix will be Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull-Renault. Row 2 is made up of the Williams of Nico Rosberg, who came second last year and in fourth spot, the other Red Bull of Mark Webber. Officially, Rubens Barrichello qualified fifth fastest before his accident, but a gearbox change means he will drop five places on the grid tomorrow. This means the top six is rounded off by Fernando Alonso in the Renault and the Toyota of Timo Glock.

Last year’s inaugural Singapore Grand Prix was a marathon, lasting one hour and fifty seven minutes, partly due to a couple of lengthy Safety Car periods, one of them the subject of so much controversy over the past few weeks. The unforgiving nature of the track means that there has to be a strong chance of seeing the field form up at some stage of the race behind the Safety Car. As is always the case on a street circuit, overtaking is very difficult, so Raikkonen and Fisichella will once again be hoping to play their startline joker, in the form of KERS, to dispense with at least a few rivals in the first few hundred metres. In the incredibly hot and humid conditions, reliability will play a crucial role, as will driver fitness. However, given the nature of the track, luck might well play its part and it seems that Scuderia Ferrari might need some to at least pick up a few points, before setting off for Japan.

“Our target today was to get at least one car through to Q3 and the other to Q2, but we did not succeed and we have to accept that our package just wasn’t quick enough in this qualifying session,” said Stefano Domenicali after yesterday's qualifying session. “Furthermore, if so many of our competitors continue to develop their cars, while we stopped doing so with ours several weeks ago, then the more time goes by, the more we will find ourselves in an ever more difficult situation. However, what really matters is the race result, where reliability is always the key factor, especially in a race that looks like being very tough and where all sorts of things could happen. Clearly, we will be trying to fight our way towards the front, which means it will be difficult to reach our minimum target of finishing in the top eight.”

Giancarlo Fisichella: “Obviously, I am disappointed with this result. I really wanted to do well, but I still haven’t managed to find the right level of confidence in this car: it’s almost as if it is driving me rather than the other way round. Especially on such a difficult track, I don’t have the confidence to go right to the limit. Naturally starting from eighteenth place means I can expect a very difficult race. I will try and make up some places at the start and then make the most of the race pace. Getting into the points would be the maximum, but even that will be a very tough target to reach.”

Kimi Raikkonen: “Unfortunately, today we were just not quick enough to get into Q3 and there was not much we could do about it. It’s logical that, as other cars improve, race after race, we pay a higher price for our decision to stop developing the F60. Tomorrow, we can expect a tough race as it is very difficult to overtake here, so getting into the points will be very difficult. It’s true that anything can happen on a track like this and we will have to do our best to make the most of every opportunity, maybe getting some help through a good start as we have usually managed in the last few races. As for the tyres, I think that tomorrow, there could be a problem with wear on the softer tyre, even if the situation could improve during the race.”

Chris Dyer: “A really difficult qualifying for us, even more so than we expected. We knew it would be tough, but we felt we could have made it through to the final part of the session. But honestly, today we did not have the performance to do that. Kimi did two good laps in Q2, but it was not enough. Tomorrow’s race will be very long, so let’s hope we can make up some places at the start and then try and get into the points.”

Qualifying session

K. Raikkonen: 13th 1.47.177 6 laps
G. Fisichella: 18th 1.48.350 11 laps
Chassis: G. Fisichella 280, K. Raikkonen 279
Weather: air temperature 31/29 °C, track temperature 32/30 °C