Massa makes it three

Another classic Ferrari/McLaren fight, a third consecutive pole for Felipe Massa, albeit by just three-hundredths of a second from Fernando Alonso's McLaren. In the practices and even in Q1 it didn't look like Ferrari would be able to give Massa the car to do that.

Yes, they'd had a great test here the week before. With the car reconfigured around the new aero/cooling package and a revised rear suspension, they seemed to have cured their one-lap, new-tyre, slow-corner understeer.

But things had changed again by Friday practice. The understeer was back, especially on the softer tyre - and the McLarens suddenly looked the form cars.

No-one was quite sure why. There were plenty of suspects: hotter track temperatures, different wind strength and direction. But perhaps most significant was the new section of track at the end of the lap, turns 10 through 16, and how its new bitumen rubbered in very differently from the established surface on the rest of the lap. And the variation this brought seemed to hurt the Ferrari more than the McLaren - as though its sweet spot was narrower.

Two factors had conspired to make it so. The F2007's set-up adjustability had definitely been hurt by the yet-tougher flexi-floor tests introduced by the FIA for this race. This was made important by the big variability of the new section of track.

So on Friday evening the team had a rethink - with Michael Schumacher, no less, sitting in on the discussions and contributing ideas. The new floor rigidity requirement in combination with their long wheelbase meant they were forced to run a higher front ride height than before - by as much as 3mm.

They were thereby more limited in how much rake they could put in the car to aid front-end grip, and had to think of some other way of reducing the understeer. Weight distribution and aero modifications were made on the hoof - and as an extra effort at making Kimi Raikkonen comfortable, his car was rebuilt around the tub he had used in testing last week, when it had handled just as he liked. It all kept the Ferrari mechanics working until 3am on Saturday morning.

It worked. If anything, a little too well - on Saturday the Ferraris had slow-corner oversteer through the new section, but they were quicker. "I'm still not totally happy with the balance," reported Felipe after his sixth career pole, "but obviously I'm more than happy with the result."

The modifications worked to such spectacular effect that Massa was a full 0.5sec faster than anyone in that slow final sector with its new track surface. The more that part of the track rubbered in, the better the Ferrari became relative to the McLaren.

Raikkonen, running three laps heavier than Massa, was disappointed, having thought after last week's test that the imbalance on new tyres that has blighted him all year was finally banished. In the faster first two sectors he was actually slightly quicker than Massa, but his higher fuel load told in the twists of the final one, where the car was just too much of an oversteering handful - even for him.

Fernando Alonso - on the same light fuel load as Massa - was gunning hard for pole and thought he'd done enough to secure it. He was deeply disappointed to discover that Massa had pipped him by three-hundredths of a second. He'd driven the revised-spec car at the previous week's test, to which Hamilton had not been invited.

There was therefore a definite point being proved in first practice on Friday when Lewis went fastest, over 0.3sec quicker than Alonso in a specification of car he was trying for the first time. After going quickest in Q1 and quicker than Alonso in Q2, for the final session Lewis was fuelled 10kg heavier (about the same as Raikkonen).

"I'm quite satisfied. With that strategy, third was maybe possible," he reflected, "as I think there was maybe another 0.1sec in the car."

Analysis of the respective Ferrari and McLaren laps showed the red car still to be finding significantly more straightline speed between the finish line and the speed trap at the end of the pit straight, just as in testing.

The F2007s were third and sixth through the trap, the MP4-22s 18th and 20th. The McLarens were definitely running more downforce, the aim being to look after their tyres in the race. Ferrari was confident its tyre wear was inherently better and so felt it could afford the better raceability of higher straightlines.

Weight-correcting the Ferrari and McLaren drivers showed an incredibly closely matched grid, but with the same order: Massa 1m19.759, Alonso 1m19.789, Raikkonen 1m19.798, Hamilton 1m19.860.

Robert Kubica's BMW headed the chase of the big four, with a fuel load not far short of Raikkonen/Hamilton, putting together a good lap right at the end after trailing team-mate Nick Heidfeld for most of the weekend.

He had been suffering with oversteer - something he finds very difficult to deal with given his aggressive steering style - though as the track rubbered in the balance improved. Heidfeld opted, not for the first time this year, to qualify on the harder tyre and was 0.136sec slower, which was accounted for by a two-lap lighter fuel load.

Jarno Trulli did an excellent job to split the BMWs and get the Toyota into the top six qualifiers for the first time this year. "That was a relief!" he said afterwards. "We nearly didn't make it through Q1 because of traffic. But luckily it was a two-lap run and so I had another chance. In Q3 I really went for it on my last run."

Like pretty much every other car, the TF107 featured heavy aero upgrades here. Trulli's team-mate, Ralf Schumacher, failed to graduate from Q1. "I was fuelled for a two-lap run but I met a car on its warm-up lap in the last sector of my first lap - so that spoilt both that lap and the following one," he said.

Showing just how fast things change, Renault considered it a result to have got both cars through to the top 10 run-off. Heikki Kovalainen did well to outqualify Giancarlo Fisichella for the second time this year - by a weight-corrected 0.325sec. Both drivers chose to qualify on the harder tyre in order to give themselves a set of new softs for the drag race off the startline on Sunday.

All weekend David Coulthard was in great form in the much improved Red Bull RB3, and it was team-mate Mark Webber's turn to suffer a series of hydraulic-related gremlins. As a result Webber didn't get out of Q1, while Coulthard made the run-off and qualified ninth. "Actually I was disappointed by that," said DC, who was seventh in Q2. "I think the car's quicker than that but I had a lot of understeer on new tyres."