Formula One news

Massa shines in Singapore qualifying

Felipe Massa blew the competition away on his final flying lap to take pole position for tomorrow's Singapore Grand Prix from title rival Lewis Hamilton and reigning champion Kimi Raikkonen.

The first ever night time F1 qualifying session got underway at 8pm local time in hot and humid conditions as air temperature was still at 31C and humidity 70 per cent.

Unfortunately for Piquet, Bourdais, Barrichello, Sutil and Fisichella their experience was cut short at the end of Q1, dropping out. Fisichella's engineers faced a race against time to repair his Force India from his morning accident and managed to do so with five minutes remaining only for the Italian to put his car back in the wall at turn three.

Q2 saw Fernando Alonso's hopes of springing a surprise disappeared on his out-lap as a fuel problem caused his engine to cut out and put him out of the session. Trulli, Button, Webber and Coulthard also dropped out while Lewis Hamilton struggled, eventually just making it through in tenth.

Felipe Massa drew first blood in Q3 going ahead of Hamilton and Raikkonen, the Finn narrowly avoiding the wall in the final corner. All three improved on their final attempts, Raikkonen going faster first, Hamilton moving top only for Felipe Massa to blow them both away with a 1m44.801s lap, 0.6s clear of Hamilton's best.

Title rivals Massa and Hamilton start from the front row ahead of Raikkonen, Kubica, Kovalainen, Heidfeld, Vettel, Glock, Rosberg and Nakajima.

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