Turkey F1 2008 - Qualifying : “I own Istanbul Park” Massa Takes Pole in Turkey

“I own Istanbul Park” is what Felipe Massa says and so far he’s showing it. Mass claimed the pole for the Turkish Grand Prix in fine style after he really did command this weekend. His final lap of 1:27.617 was best and gives him his thrid consecutive pole in Turkey.

Beside him is Heikki Kovalainen who clearly has bounced back from his crash 2 weeks ago. Kovalainen will start 2nd next to team mate Lewis Hamilton who starts 3rd. At first it did seem strange, the tire choices for Lewis Hamilton was the hard compound which had shown up until that point to be the much slower tire. Hamilton wasn’t happy with how his car handled with the softer and chose the hard for his final flying lap. It was 1 10th slower than Kovalainen, but good enough for 3rd on the grid.

The McLaren still seems a bear to drive especially for Hamilton. Ever lap he was sliding and correcting, pushing, and correcting. The car looked all over the track at times, but Hamilton still managed a pretty good result.

Kimi Raikkonen on the other hand couldn’t get it together and never challenged for pole and starts 4th. He’s not going to like starting behind both McLarens and is going to have to push to get past them before Massa runs away.

Neither BMW-Sauber driver could come to grips with the track in qualifying with Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld starting behind both McLarens. Kubica couldn’t do better than 5th and Heidfeld 9th. At one point is was tight for Heidfeld to get into Q3 and his last lap in Q2 was the only lap that got hm into Q3.

Red Bull had a great outing with both Webber and Coulthard getting into Q3. Not bad. Webber should be strong starting from 6th and Coulthard in 10th.

It’s still Trulli all the way for Toyota. His usual top qualifying performance has him sitting in 8th to start. Timo Glock not so good barely getting into Q2 where he ended up in 15th.

It wasn’t the outing Fernando Alonso had in Spain although not bad. No front row for Alonso, but 7th isn’t bad. Nelson Piquet looked like an amateur out there today and couldn’t even manage Q2 starting only 17th. To me, this guy is just not up to the task with Renault.

257 (Rubens Barrichello) didn’t sound too disappointed in his interview after bowing out. He starts 12th and said they just couldn’t get the setup right for today. Button out shined again by Barrichello starts behind him in 13th.3 guys found out how tough it would be now without Super Aguri around to take 2 of the bottom spots. Kazuki Nakajima, Nelso Piquet, and Sebastien Bourdais couldn’t get into Q2. They join Fisichella who qualified better than 19th, but after a 3 spot penalty yesterday, that’s where he starts. Team mate Adrian Sutil takes the last spot. Force India can’t be happy with starting in the last 2 spots.