Hamilton: Massa will be hard to beat

Massa scored his fourth pole of the season at the street circuit, equaling the amount of top spots secured by Hamilton this year.

The Brazilian beat the McLaren driver by over two tenths, with Hamilton admitting Massa had "destroyed" all his rivals in the first sector.

"As you see we just watched Felipe's qualifying lap and in sector one he destroyed everyone, so they will be hard to beat tomorrow, but we will push hard to do so," said Hamilton.

Despite his caution, the Briton said he felt his car was strong.

"It was quite straightforward for me," he added: "We knew we had a good car through testing and going into Q1 and Q2 it was just going through, no problem.

"The car was great, and I went out and I stayed on option tyres for both of Q3's timed laps. The first one wasn't a great lap, I lost about a second compared to the second. The second one was quite good. For sure there is some time there, (but) it is a solid position to be in for tomorrow."

Hamilton, leading the championship from Massa's teammate Kimi Raikkonen by five points, admitted he was pleased with his performance.

"I was a tenth down at the first corner, at Turn 1 or Turn 2/3 - and Turn 4 and 5 didn't seem to be as strong, so that is probably where the time went. It wasn't a shocking lap. I was happy with it."