Massa takes pole position for European Grand Prix

Felipe Massa will start from pole position around the new Valencia Street Circuit for Sunday's European Grand Prix.

Normal service was resumed in the closing 10-minute blast that is Q3 after Formula One's 'minnows' had threatened a major surprise in the first two sessions as Sebastian Vettel and Jarno Trulli shone.

Massa took the honours however with a lap of one minute 38.989 seconds to edge current championship leader Lewis Hamilton into second by 0.210secs, with BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica back on the pace with third.

After the brilliant sunshine and searing heat of the previous two days, qualifying was run under leaden skies, but with the temperature still at 27 degrees centigrade.

For Brazilian Massa, eight points behind Hamilton in the drivers' standings, it was his fourth pole of the season for Ferrari, but first since Monaco at the end of May.

McLaren ace Hamilton is likely to be happy with second as he had appeared to struggle on occasions around the 5.440km track which runs through Valencia's marina and post.

As for Kubica, he has not started as high as third since victory in Canada in June when he started from the front row behind Hamilton.

Behind the leading trio came reigning world champion Kimi Raikkonen in his Ferrari - outqualified by Massa for the eighth time in 12 races - followed by fellow Finn Heikki Kovalainen in his McLaren.

Vettel at least managed a career-high sixth for Toro Rosso, with Trulli seventh, Nick Heidfeld eighth in his BMW Sauber, and Nico Rosberg ninth in his Williams.

To complete a stunning day for Toro Rosso, Sebastien Bourdais made it into the top 10 for the first time in his debut F1 season.

Kazuki Nakajima will start at a season-high 11th in his Williams, and although likely to be happy with that, there will also be a degree of sadness at missing out on a top-10 place by just 11 thousandths of a second.

Unfortunately for home hero Fernando Alonso, all the good will in the world from his army of fans around the track could not propel the Renault star into the top 10 and he will start from 12th.

Behind the Spaniard came Timo Glock for Toyota, Mark Webber in his Red Bull and the second Renault of Nelson Piquet.

It proved a miserable qualifying session for Jenson Button and David Coulthard as the two Britons will start 16th and 17th in their Honda and Red Bull respectively.

Button's optimism following Friday's practice when he set the third quickest time clearly proved unfounded, underlying the work Honda still have to do to catch up to the frontrunners.

Team-mate Rubens Barrichello, who has struggled miserably with the set-up of his car all weekend, starts at a season-low 19th, splitting the Force India duo of Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil.

Despite the team debuting their new seamless shift gearbox, which they had anticipated would shave three tenths of a second off lap times, it was still not enough to propel them up the grid.

Massa said: "You always want to be top, and to start from pole here for the first time is very nice.

"The track is not easy, it's slippery so a perfect lap is difficult, but I was able to score pole and we have a good car for the race and let's hope we can have a good one."

Looking to make amends for the blown engine which robbed him of the win in the Hungarian Grand Prix just three laps from home three weeks ago, Massa added: "We have a great car.

"As we've shown in so many races this year that is the case, and as we did in the last race - but sometimes things happen.

"It's always nice to be on top after such a result. We don't know how the race will be, but it's always nice to be on pole."

Hamilton appeared satisfied with being on the front row as he said: "It was quite straightforward for me.

"We had a good car in practice. We came through Q1 and Q2, which is never a problem.

"I saved the option tyre for Q3, and although my first lap wasn't good, the second one was and we've managed to get a great position.

"But Felipe destroyed everyone in sector one (of the track), so he is going to be very hard to beat."

Kubica was certainly pleased to be back in the top three, with the Pole commenting: "It was a very good qualifying for myself and the team.

"Qualifying went pretty smooth, although the weather was playing around a little bit, but there were only a few drops in Q2 which didn't have any effect."