Massa takes pole as Schumi dissappoints

Somewhet surprisingly, Felipe Massa grabbed the pole position and is ahead of his teammate Michael Schumacher. The 7-times world champion ruined his first lap and could not realise what everyone expected from him with such a Ferrari. Fernando Alonso is on the second row together with his 4th placed teammate Giancarlo Fisichella.

Formula One is back in full force after a long but well deserved summer break.

Very early in the first session Fernando Alonso leaves the pitlane to put in a fast lap. While it is a bit unusual and his teammate does not follow suit, he is thereby able to put in a lap without suffering from traffic. His time is shortly after bettered by Trulli and with 6 minutes to go also by Michael Schumacher by more than 1.5s. It appears as if Alonso's early lap was a measure for nothing as he drove another lap when his Italian teammate was also on track. At the end of the session, Massa is quickest, ahead of his teammate, R. Schumacher and Fernando Alonso.

David Coulthard meanwhile could not position himself amongst the best 16 drivers despite a very late attempt to do so. He is eliminated in Q1 together with both Toro Rosso drivers, Tiago Monteiro and the Japanese cars of Sato and Yamamoto. The extra 300rpm granted for Toro Rosso's limited V10 engine apparently were not enough. Christijan Albers on the other hand put in a great result as he goes through to Q2 with his Midland F1.

Q2 gets underway with Kubica and Heidfeld as they leave the pitlane immediately after the start of the session. Halfway through Alonso knocks R. Schumacher off of first place but Flavio is not really impressed by the result. One minute later it is obvious why as Schumacher improves that benchmark again by a full second. Kimi Raikkonen is so far unable to attack that pace as he does not even come close to Alonso. The same goes for Fisichella who put in a 7th time with just one minute remaining in the session.

Surprisingly, Barrichello is knocked out while his teammate even put in a time faster than Alonso. The Brazilian was able to fight with Button in recent GPs but might have chosen the wrong tyre for this qualifying session. Knocked out this time are Webber, Klien, De La Rosa, Trulli, Barrichello, Rosberg and Albers.

Just like in any other Grand Prix, the last sessions starts with a queue in the pitlane, this time lead by Button ahead of Kubica and M. Schumacher. After 7 minutes of running both Renaults enter for this first pitstop already as the first, a bit against their habit of the running season. One lap later most of the other drivers follo the example by getting new tyres for their flying laps.

After the first series of laps, Massa leads in front of Fisichella, Alonso and Button. Michael Schumacher missed the first corner on his first attempt and immediately came back in for new tyres. Fisichella meanwhile complained to his team that his engine does not perform as it should but is told at that time the telemetry doesn't show anything unusual.

As Schumacher messed up his first lap, he was not as low on fuel as the others in his second attempt and therefore could not prevent Massa from being quicker than him. The Brazilian takes pole position while Alonso is third and sees his teammate aside of him.