Interlagos, 6 November

The second shortest race track on the Formula 1 calendar, Interlagos always produces plenty of excitement. Throw a wet, but drying track into the mix and you get some real crowd-pleasing action. That was certainly the case in the penultimate qualifying session of the season, but unfortunately the outcome was not too favourable for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro.


Championship leader Fernando Alonso finished fifth fastest in the third and final part of the session, behind the three other remaining pretenders to the 2010 F1 crown. However, the biggest surprise of all was not produced by one of the “Big Guns” but by a young driver in his very first season of Formula 1, Nico Hulkenberg, who claimed his first ever F1 pole position. The Williams man was effectively the only driver to put together a clean lap, right at the end of the session which had seen the field switch from extreme wets to intermediate rain tyres, before the final top ten shoot-out ended with everyone on slicks. Fernando looked set for a front row place, until a mistake from the Spaniard on his last lap, at Turn 10 cost him too much time. As for his team-mate, Felipe Massa never made the most of the dry weather tyres, struggling to get the maximum amount of grip out of them and he will start from ninth on the grid. For the Brazilian, his disappointment is twofold, because not only will he not be best placed to take away significant points from Alonso’s rivals in the title fight, but also he was particularly keen to put on a great show in front of his home crowd.


The surprising Hulkenberg shares the front row with the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel. The second row features the German’s team-mate Mark Webber, last year’s winner here, in third place with the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton alongside him, while Fernando shares row three with sixth placed Rubens Barrichello, thus making it a great day for the Williams team. While the Scuderia was hoping that the predicted rain in qualifying would allow it to get closer to the Red Bulls, who are almost invincible in dry conditions over a single lap, the Ferrari engineers will now turn their attention to dealing with the prospect of a dry race tomorrow. 71 laps of Interlagos is always a challenge and with the F10 showing a good pace over a long distance in free practice, there is no reason why Fernando Alonso cannot leave Brazil, still in a strong position in the championship, before heading off to Abu Dhabi for the final round in one week’s time.