Istanbul Park, 29 May

In sixty one years of competing in the Formula 1 World Championship, taking part in 799 races, there have been much worse moments than this afternoon’s qualifying, as far as Scuderia Ferrari is concerned. However, on the eve of a landmark eight hundredth Grand Prix it is disappointing that the two Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro cars will start from rows four and six on the starting grid for the Turkish Grand Prix and with both F10s on the dirty side of the track.

Why? Quite simply because, in qualifying trim on low fuel, the car did not have the speed to produce a quick first flying lap, despite the best efforts of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso. The Brazilian had the better day, at least getting through into Q3, the final shoot-out for the top ten places on the grid, setting the eighth fastest time. Fernando went out at the end of Q2, two places off making it to the final session, at a moment when many cars were lapping in almost identical times.



At the start of the weekend, all the talk was of Red Bull again being the dominant force and so it turned out to be this afternoon, when Barcelona and Monaco winner, Mark Webber took pole position. However, McLaren has also looked in good shape in Istanbul and joining the Australian on the front row will be Lewis Hamilton. Their respective team-mates line up behind them, with Sebastian Vettel third and Jenson Button fourth. Row 3 is an all Mercedes affair, with Michael Schumacher fifth ahead of Nico Rosberg. Felipe has the Renault of Robert Kubica on his inside, while Fernando shares his row with Adrian Sutil in the Force India.

Aiming for the podium might be a bit over ambitious for the Prancing Horse duo, but race fans should at the very least enjoy the spectacle of Felipe and Fernando trying to fight their way up the order, given that the results of Friday’s free practice session show that the Ferraris are definitely more competitive over a long run. The 58 lap race gets underway at 15h00 local time tomorrow.