Qualifying is over and the pole position for tomorrow's race will be held by Ferrari's Felipe Massa, ahead of his teammate Schumacher with the Renault's in close pursuit.
The big suprise of the first session was the performance of Christian Albers in the MF1 car, making it through to the second session at the expense of David Coulthard. Both Hondas needed to put in fast laps late on as they were running close to the limit in terms of elimination. The six cars to drop out were Sato, Yamamoto, Speed, Liuzzi, Monteiro and Coulthard.
The big news of the second session was the performance difference between the two Hondas. Button finished in P2, second only to the blisteringly quick Ferrari of Schumacher, whilst teammate Barrichello was elminated. What a difference a race victory makes! The other news was the hugely promising Kubica also squeezing into the final shootout again, showing that the youngster is more than willing and capble to mix it with the big boys. The other promising youngster in the field, Nico Rosberg, was again showing his indifferent form by being comfortably beaten by teammate Webber. He really has not lived up to early season promise in recent months.
The final session was, as expected, dominated by Ferrari. However, the big suprise was that it was Massa and not Schumacher who takes pole. Schumacher had been dominant all day, yet suddenly in the final session he got scrappy, particulatly down into the first corner. He did enough to lock out the front row, but will be disappointed no doubt not to get pole. In a frantic final minute to the session the positions below the Ferraris were changing by the second. In the end it will be an all Renault second row, leaving Alonso with as good a chance as he could've expected to defend his slender championship lead.
Below that Button, Heidfeld, Ralf, and Raikkonen were all within a hair's breadth of each other. Ralf came in fifth but will recieve a 10-place penalty, which promotes Heidfeld and Button up to the third row. Raikkonen and Kubica will start on the next row with Webber down in the final place of the last session.
1. Massa
2. Schumacher
3. Alonso
4. Fisichella
5. Ralf (10-place penalty)
6. Heidfeld
7. Button
8. Raikkonen
9. Kubica
10. Webber
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Originally Posted by Dino Scuderia
