Massa On Pole As Rain Fails To Come

Felipe Massa stormed to pole position this morning with Raikkonen second, securing an all-red front row. Kovalainen outpaced his team-mate as Hamilton struggled around the Sepang circuit.

The expected rain never came despite 20 minute warnings throughout the session. I got up early given my overloaded day to make sure I got to see it as opposed to hearing it on the radio. A six am start isn’t as bad as the Melbourne start! But wait a minute! A Ferrari front row? Weren't the press saying that the Italian team had no qualifying pace and that McLaren had it easy? Ahh don't you love it when people put their foot where their mouth is.

Coming out of qualifying the biggest concern is the fuel saving at the end of qualifying. We escape the issue in Australia, although it was highlighted but today we saw the dangers of it. Heidfeld and Alonso but ran out of sync and ended up with their own personal game of asteroids out there as they danced around cars going at pedestrian pace.

Why this wasn’t addressed after Melbourne, where the problem was noted is beyond me. It’s not like we haven’t had this issue before. Cars going to the grid on race day have been stopped from crawling around because of the dangers. Last year we have seen cars after the final qualifying session. It begs to question why it didn’t add together for the rule-makers. It will be interesting to see if anyone will be penalised for blocking given that it is a big no-no these days.

Tomorrow’s race is still under the threat of rain. McLaren will be looking for it given the raw pace of the Ferrari’s. They needed to be ahead of the Ferrari’s to have a chance to contain them. Other quail mentions go out to Trulli who showed his usual quick lap pace and team-mate Glock. Both Toyota drivers made the top ten for the second time, although question marks always remain over the race pace.