Massa wins pole for Brazilian GP

Felipe Massa won pole to the delight of the Brazilian fans

Felipe Massa took his third straight pole position for the Brazilian Grand Prix, as championship leader Lewis Hamilton could only muster fourth fastest time behind Jarno Trulli and Kimi Raikkonen.

While Massa dominated the crucial part of qualifying Hamilton appeared to be choking under pressure and it was only in the closing moments was he able to move up to the 2nd row.

Massa is 7 points behind Hamilton in the title fight and must win and Hamilton to languish to take the title. A win is worth 10 points.

Massa’s pole was so popular with the rabid Brazilian fans that the cheers drowned out the noise of the F1 engines, as the Paulista secured his third consecutive pole position at the track where he first began racing in go-karts when he was a small boy. It was a bravura performance at just the right moment, going into the most important race of the season.

Trulli, Massa and Raikkonen wave to the crowd

At the wheel of the second F2008, Kimi Raikkonen set the third fastest time, hampered by a bit of understeer, to line up behind his teammate, who shares the front row with the Toyota of Jarno Trulli. But as Kimi pointed out after the session, on this track, starting on the "pole" side is a definite advantage and therefore better than starting from second spot.

Alongside Kimi is championship leader Lewis Hamilton who took fourth spot in his McLaren-Mercedes.

Row 3 sees Heikki Kovalainen in fifth place for McLaren, with the Renault of Fernando Alonso on his outside.

Scuderia Toro Rosso was looking strong as well with Sebastian Vettel in seventh place and Sebastien Bourdais ninth.

"Two cars in Q3 again is excellent," said the team's Giorgio Ascanelli. "Both drivers did a good job and the car, while not perfect is in reasonable shape. Obviously, we are on two very different strategies to cover all the options for tomorrow, because of the uncertainty concerning the weather. Therefore it’s equally obvious that the car on the fastest strategy is ahead of the other one. But definitely a very good job from the whole team."

Massa waves to his adoring fans

Interlagos can be a treacherous venue: it is a fantastic circuit with so many challenges, its fast corners, its changes of gradient, a dramatic first corner corkscrew that dives down the hill past the pit lane exit and the fact it is a short lap, so that backmarkers can become a problem much earlier in the race than usual.

However, tomorrow the most difficult factor to deal with could be the weather: after today's warm and dry conditions, hotter weather will bring with it a strong chance of heavy rainstorms in the afternoon. In the past, a wet Interlagos has produced some completely unbelievable scenarios and despite the best efforts of the team strategists, accidents and Safety Car periods are hard to plan for. Whatever the conditions, it seems that the 2008 Formula 1 season will come to a thrilling finale tomorrow.

Q1, Q2, and Q3 Results

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