Planet-F1

Sat: Ferrari, McLaren, BMW, Red Bull

Saturday 10th May 2008

Felipe Massa clinched his third successive Turkish pole position as Ferrari, McLaren, BMW and Red Bull each put two cars in the top ten.

Ferrari
Felipe Massa: I am very happy to have taken a third consecutive pole at this circuit: it is really motivating and it would be fantastic to do the same again tomorrow in the race. Driving this track is nice and fun, with Turn 8 being exceptional, although there are others that are also very tough. Today, the car was great and I got the most out of it. Tomorrow I will have to watch out for all those who are around me on the grid. It will be important to work out the best way to manage the tyres in the light of how the track will evolve and how the temperature changes. In Q2, I had a bit of traffic, but in Q3 I was able to do two completely trouble free laps."

Kimi Raikkonen: Obviously, I would have preferred to have been further up the grid, but this position is definitely not the end of the world. What matters is the race when the points are given out. We are up against very strong opposition, which is no surprise to us. Of course, there's a question mark over fuel loads and we won't get an answer to that until the first pit stops tomorrow afternoon. I am a bit disappointed but I made mistakes on my second lap in Q3 and I have to accept that: I didn't go into the final corner before the pit straight quite right and lost a lot of speed. We can count on a car that is good over a distance and we will try and make the most of it, trying to get as many points as possible. Winning is never easy, but I'll give it a go!"

McLaren
Heikki Kovalainen: The two weeks following my accident in Spain have been a little bit like a rollercoaster ride and I am really happy to start from the front row here in Istanbul. I have felt comfortable in the car since my first lap yesterday, and everything has been running smoothly. In my second run in the third part of qualifying I attacked as much as possible, and the lap was absolutely clean which was great. The tyre choice this weekend has been extremely tricky. I am starting from the dirty side of the circuit but don't think this will be a problem, and we have a good basis for tomorrow's race."

Lewis Hamilton: am not completely satisfied with third place today, as I think I could have gone a bit faster and also didn't make the right tyre choice as I was on the harder Bridgestone tyre for my final run. I did a great lap in Q1 and felt the car worked better there than in Q2 which was why I made the tyre decision I did. My final lap wasn't that great either, so all in all I am a bit disappointed. However looking forward we have a very good technical package and will push hard tomorrow to fight for a good result. I think we are close to Ferrari, but it will be a tough race. As this circuit provides some overtaking opportunities it should be a good one for the spectators and the fans as well."

BMW
Robert Kubica: am quite happy with my qualifying result and hope for a good race. We were expecting a little bit more after finishing P2 in the second qualifying session, but after refuelling the balance of the car was not good in a few corners and it became difficult to drive. With the high fuel load we picked up a lot of understeer. We shall now analyse the data and try to understand why."

Nick Heidfeld: Of course I'm not happy with P9, but I can also see something positive in today's qualifying - it went much better than practice did. The sun came out and this helped me to heat up the tyres. My very last lap was actually really good until the final sector when I made a mistake which cost me about three tenths of a second. I think I can move up the field in the race."

Red Bull
Mark Webber: It's good to get P6 today, after letting the team down yesterday with a bit of a shunt. The only downside of today's result is that we're on the left-hand side of the grid, but, apart from that, it went very well. We're in reasonable shape to get some good points tomorrow, we'll just have to keep our nose clean and have good clean pit stops. It's going to be an interesting race, the team has done a great job today - to get both cars into Q3 was a good effort."

David Coulthard: I'm happy to be through to the top ten after problems at the last two grands prix. We used all our option tyres to get there though, two sets in Q1 and two sets in Q2, as I didn't want to take any risks. As a result, we only had primes left at the end. We only did one run in Q3 as we wanted to save fuel, so the car was very heavy."