Massa: 'I pushed car to limit to claim pole'

Felipe Massa revealed he pushed his Ferrari to the limit to claim the third pole position of his career ahead of tomorrow‘s Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Brazilian driver edged out McLaren’s Fernando Alonso and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen to banish the disappointment of a gearbox problem at the same stage in Australia three weeks ago.

“I got 100% out of the car,” said the 25-year-old, who will be chasing only his third win in Formula One at Sepang.

“On my second run I had a bit of traffic but on my last one I got a clean lap in. There was some rain starting to fall at turn seven but it didn’t affect my lap.”

Alonso was delighted also to secure a place on the front row and underlined his belief that Ferrari would not be as dominant in the second round of the championship.

“Qualifying is like the first lap of the race in that it’s all about getting position,” the Spaniard said.

“We were second in Qualifying Three so maybe Ferrari has less fuel but Sunday will be the hardest part of the weekend for us.

“We’ve made some progress in the last three weeks. We’re closer to Ferrari than we were in Australia, where we were uncompetitive in qualifying and about 30 seconds behind Kimi in the middle part of the race. We’re going in the right direction.”

Championship leader Raikkonen insisted he was not surprised at finishing behind the McLaren

“I kind of expected difficulties yesterday and today,” he said. “We probably needed more running this morning but third position is good for the race. The engine seems to be ok.”

Lewis Hamilton was satisfied with his fourth position on the grid and revealed the light rain that started to fall at the end of the session made him reconsider trying too hard to make the front row.

“It went quite smoothly, I had no problems,” he said. “I managed to do as many laps as I needed to and the pace of the car was quite good. I still think the car can go a bit faster.”

He added: “Towards the end of the last run it started to rain a little bit in turn seven and it got a bit slippery, making it a gamble whether to push or not. As a result I decided to ease off a bit in the middle sector but I’m still happy with fourth.

David Coulthard was disappointed not to get his Red Bull higher up the grid after posting a slower time in qualifying two than he did in the opening session.

“It’s a shame not to have got into the top 10,” said the Scot. “I wasn’t quick enough on my final lap and also lost the back end in turn four, but we’ve had fewer issues with the car than Australia and a couple of tenths would have put me in the final session.”

Jenson Button will start from 15th after his Honda could not cope as the pace was raised considerably during qualifying two.

“The result was pretty much as expected,” he said. “Qualifying one was a bit of a surprise. I was reasonably happy but the problem was that when I went out on another set of tyres and pushed a little bit harder, they started to overheat and the car can’t take it.

“So I think I’ve found the limit of our car at the moment.”

Anthony Davidson insisted he would have been in a better position than 18th if his Super Aguri had not been held up by a slower rival.

“I’m frustrated because I had traffic on my lap with the softer tyre,” he said. “My banker lap on the harder tyre gave me P12 in the first session and I was confident of easily improving on that, but the Toro Ross held me up.”