Formula One news

Massa beats Hamilton to Valencia pole

Felipe Massa held his nerve in a frantic qualifying session around the Valencia harbour, to beat Lewis Hamilton and Robert Kubica to pole position.

Qualifying got underway in clear and dry conditions, but dark clouds on the horizon remained an ominous threat.

The first qualifying session ended with a frantic scramble for lap times with Jarno Trulli ending up fastest ahead of Vettel, Massa and Alonso. Button, Coulthard, Fisichella, Barrichello and Sutil all dropped out early.

Rain began to fall on part of the circuit at the start of the second qualifying session, urging both Ferraris to make an early dash in case conditions deteriorated further. The rain passed though, without drama and Nakajima, Alonso, Glock, Webber and Piquet were eliminated from Q2.

Felipe Massa threw down an early marker in the pole shootout, a lap of 1m39.371s putting him half a second clear of team mate Kimi Raikkonen. Lewis Hamilton recovered on his final flying lap to go fastest, but Massa was not giving up and a lap of 1m38.989s confirmed pole for the Brazilian and Ferrari.

The grid for tomorrow sees Massa on pole ahead of Hamilton, Kubica, Raikkonen, Kovalainen, Vettel, Trulli, Heidfeld, Rosberg and Bourdais rounding off the top ten.

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