Qualification – Massa at the top, Renault in the clouds

The 2008 title contender, Felippe Massa, secured the first pole position at the new Singapore street circuit. The Ferrari driver outpaced Lewis Hamilton and his teammate, Kimi Räikkönen, in a brand-new concept in Formula 1, a night race. Massa set his best time in the very last seconds of the session, just after 11 p.m. local time.

The title contenders were indeed present for this first night Grand Prix. That wasn’t the case for Alonso and more generally Renault, who missed their start in the Asian tour despite good results in the free practice sessions. Sébastien Bourdais is not celebrating either, unlike his young teammate, Sebastian Vettel at Toro Rosso.

The Brazilian dominated the final part of the qualifications, still leaving a little hope for Hamilton. Massa indeed set the fastest time during his first stint, before the Briton seized the provisional pole by a few hundredths. Ultimately, Massa was the best and took the definitive pole position by a significant margin of over six-tenths of a second.

Kimi Räikkönen has still not recovered from his recent mediocre performances and cannot compete with his Brazilian teammate. The Finn had a few scares today but ultimately secured third place and will sandwich Hamilton for the race tomorrow, 2 PM in France.

Kubica claimed the fourth-best performance in his first-ever Formula 1 night qualifying. His teammate is also well-placed, with Nick Heidfeld securing the sixth-fastest time. BMW can still take the 2nd place in the Constructors’ Championship from McLaren and is putting all its efforts into achieving this. Kovalainen is positioned between the two white and blue cars.

Toro Rosso achieved a feat two weeks ago in Italy by winning the race with the driver already crowned best driver of the season, Vettel. Today in Singapore, the German made a strong impression with the seventh fastest time. He thus overshadowed his teammate, Bourdais, who only secured the seventeenth fastest time; the Le Mans native is experiencing major issues this weekend in stabilizing his STR3.

Glock is the only Toyota driver to make it into Q3. He is eighth and ahead of the two Williams drivers. Rosberg and Nakajima managed to enter Q3, which hadn’t happened yet this year. They take advantage of the issues faced by other teams. Red Bull suffers from the Renault engine, while the French team places its drivers only in 15th and 16th places. Fernando Alonso delivered very strong performances throughout the weekend and secured the second-fastest time in Q1. Whether unlucky or not, the Spanish driver fell victim to a fuel pump problem at the start of Q2 and didn’t set a single lap. Nelson Piquet is struggling with performance and didn’t even make it into Q2. The Brazilian is increasingly being pushed towards the exit, as Renault has been frequently referencing Romain Grosjean in recent races…

Jenson Button delivers one of his best performances of the season with the Honda and takes the twelfth fastest time, just behind Jarno Trulli (Toyota). Following are the Red Bulls of Webber and Coulthard.

At the back of the grid, alongside Bourdais and Piquet, we find Barrichello, as well as the Force India cars. Sutil is ahead of Fisichella. The Italian driver had a major accident this morning in FP3. With the car barely repaired, he repeated his driving error at the same corner and hit the wall at exactly the same spot as this morning. The impact was less severe, but the Italian stops there.

Results of the Qualifying – Singapore GP – 27 September 2008