Formula One news

Massa flies to Turkish pole

Felipe Massa stormed to pole position for the Turkish Grand Prix, just as he has been the past two years. The Ferrari driver qualified ahead of Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton. Championship leader Kimi Raikkonen ended up fourth.

Qualifying got under way in cooler conditions - air temperature just 17 degrees Centigrade and the track, benefiting from the sunnier conditions, at 30 degrees Centigrade. Without Super Aguri, now five drivers would be eliminated in Q1, and a further five in Q2.

The first session claimed the heads of Nakajima, Piquet, Bourdais, Fisichella and Sutil while the second session saw Rosberg, Barrichello, Button, Vettel and Glock drop out.

The pole shoot-out was a close run contest, but in the end it was Istanbul specialist, and two-time winner at this track Felipe Massa who took pole with a lap of 1m27.617s, 0.2s ahead of Heikki Kovalainen, who showed his accident at Barcelona has not affected him in the slightest.

Lewis Hamilton took third ahead of Kimi Raikkonen as McLaren took the first steps in its fight back against Ferrari's recent domination. Robert Kubica ended fifth ahead of a strong sixth for Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso seventh. Trulli, Heidfeld and Coulthard rounded off the top ten.

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