Looking out for Number One

Massa had to reassert himself against Ferrari team-mate Raikkonen in Malaysia - and he did just that with his pole-winning lap.
By MARK HUGHES

After his disastrous start in Melbourne, and the potential lost momentum in his task of getting himself out of the Ferrari number-two role, Felipe Massa needed something resounding here. And he duly produced it with a clear pole position, 0.3 seconds faster than Fernando Alonso's McLaren (albeit only 0.16sec when taking account of the Ferrari's lighter fuel load).

Regardless, Massa's was a great lap, produced with a flourish right at the end of the session, having run wide at the exit of turn six on his previous new-tyre run.

Even the rain drops beginning to spit onto his visor in the second half of the lap didn't deter him. He could feel the grip was still there, knew the tyres were still hot enough to work. All weekend he'd looked more hooked up and comfortable with the F2007 than Raikkonen who, just as in Melbourne, said he didn't really like the car's balance on new soft tyres.

Even in the low-fuel Q2 session, Raikkonen had trailed his team-mate by a couple of tenths, a pattern that had been established in the practices too. "I'm very confident of our race pace," he explained, "but I haven't been able to get one-lap balance with it all weekend." So it wasn't Raikkonen whom Massa was fending off, but Alonso.

If anything, Felipe seemed surprised that he'd had to extend himself so far to beat the McLarens, which definitely looked more competitive here than in Australia. "Yeah, they had looked strong in practice too, so we sort of had a clue, but even so I was a little surprised. Given how hard Fernando pushed us, it makes this a very satisfying pole."

Alonso confirmed the improvement in the McLaren - and in his own adaptation to it: "I'm happy with the set-up now. All weekend we have been improving it, getting it better each session and also we have developed it since Australia. Plus, I'm getting better.

I'm beginning to feel like I'm understanding the driving style you need with this car and these tyres and it's feeling more natural now.

I'd say this was 100 per cent of our potential today, so I'm pleased." With rain intermittently spitting but the track still very grippy, the dying moments of the top-10 run-off were high pressure for the Ferrari and McLaren-Mercedes drivers as they battled for pole. One wrong move and you'd blown it. Lewis Hamilton was the first to crack, as would be expected of the guy with the smallest data bank.

On his final run, through turn seven, a fast seventh-gear sweep, Lewis saw the raindrops on his visor. "I'd experienced this happening in testing last week," he said, "and that time the track had become really slippery. So I backed off but then realised the grip was actually still there. It was too late and I'd lost the time. It was just one of those situations where experience counts."

He was also running two laps heavier than Alonso, accounting for around 0.2 of the 0.7sec deficit. It left him fourth.

The Ferrari/McLaren advantage over the remainder of the field was substantial. Nick Heidfeld's BMW was best of the rest, 0.5sec slower than Hamilton. Just like Raikkonen, Heidfeld didn't like the balance of his car on new soft tyres - as had also been the case in Australia.

He thus opted to set his time on the hards. His team-mate, Robert Kubica - on softs - had looked on-course to beat him to P5, having been quicker on previous runs, but yet again, just as in Melbourne, the team did not get him out in time for a second new-tyre run. His previous run was good for seventh.

Nico Rosberg was able to punish BMW's error with an excellent lap in the Williams-Toyota that netted him sixth. "It's like a repeat of last year," he said, in reference to his second-row start then. "This is absolutely as much as we could have got out of the car today. It seems to improve relative to the others as the track becomes grippier. This was the same in Melbourne."

The feeling was that as the track offered up more grip, the more powerful rear tyres induced some understeer into the car that negated its otherwise weak rear end. The team had also improved the way the car used its rubber over one lap.

The Toyota TF107 displayed exactly the opposite trait, eighth fastest Jarno Trulli feeling that the car was at its best on a really green track and that it didn't pick up as much grip as the others when the surface rubbered in. Despite that, the car had a visibly good balance and looked nicely driveable. Trulli was 0.1sec quicker than team-mate Ralf Schumacher, one place behind. Overall, the cars were still 2sec off the pole pace.

Mark Webber again got the Red Bull through to Q3 - but his gamble to fit new soft tyres very soon in the session backfired as the heavy rainfall he was betting on failed to occur. He thus had to do his low-fuel lap on hard tyres, leaving him 10th. Prior to this he looked on much the same pace as Rosberg.

For the first time since the three-part qualifying system was introduced last year, Renault failed to get either of its cars through to Q3. Heikki Kovalainen at least had the consolation of out-qualifying team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella, the pair lining up 11th and 12th.

Heikki in fact had been looking on-course to get through to the run-off on his final run, but ran wide, clattering across the grass at the exit of turn six. It reflected how tricky the car was, but at least Kovalainen was this time tuned in to it.

Fisi looked very tentative in his handling of the R27 and never looked like making the Q3 cut. "It just lacks grip," he said, "and that makes it hard to put a clean lap together."

David Coulthard, 13th quickest, was 0.15sec off team-mate Webber in Q2, enough to ensure he didn't progress to the run-off. "I got a bit of overseer through turn four on my last run," he explained.

Takuma Sato's 14th place ensured that Super Aguri was again ahead of the parent Hondas on the grid. Jenson Button did well to line up just behind Sato, less than a tenth away in a car that was eating its rear tyres.

He could either have them too cold in the first sector or wildly overheating in the last depending upon how hard he pushed on the warm-up lap. The car was visibly a gripless handful. At least he had it better than team-mate Rubens Barrichello, who never even got a lap in his own car because of a gearbox glitch.

He had just one lap in the spare, set up for Button, and failed to get out of Q1. Alex Wurz was another to be limited to that opening session because of a gearbox problem, Alex finding the Williams' gearbox unwilling to change up at the critical time.