Budapest, 5 August 2006

It was a day of mixed fortunes and missed opportunities for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro at the Hungaroring. The good news is that, despite encountering some traffic on his final quick lap, Felipe Massa secured yet another front row grid position. The Brazilian will start tomorrow's Hungarian Grand Prix from second place alongside pole man, McLaren-Mercedes' Kimi Raikkonen.
However, Michael Schumacher did not even make it through to the final part of qualifying that decides the top ten places on the grid. This was because of a complex time penalty imposed on him by the Stewards of the Meeting, after they judged that the Ferrari man had passed a couple of cars while red flags were being waved to stop the morning free practice session, after Jenson Button had blown up his Honda. In the end, the German was credited with the twelfth best time, although he will start at least from eleventh place, as the aforementioned Button drops ten places on the grid as he needs an engine change. It was a missed opportunity to make significant inroads into Fernando Alonso's title lead. Late on Saturday night the Stewards judged that the Renault man had deliberately driven at Robert Doornbos in the Red Bull car and had also passed a car under a yellow flag and he was given the same penalty as Schumacher. The reigning world champion has therefore qualified fifteenth and we can expect an interesting fight between the two championship leaders.

The second row of the grid sees Rubens Barrichello in third place for Honda a team that continues to improve in recent races. Button should have been alongside his team-mate, but fourth place now goes to the McLaren-Mercedes of Pedro de la Rosa. Row three features the Williams of Mark Webber in fifth spot and the Toyota of Ralf Schumacher.