Istanbul, 26th August 2006

Today in Istanbul, Ferrari scored its 184th pole position; a worthy achievement of course, but nothing very unusual. However, it is a different story for Felipe Massa as the Brazilian recorded his first ever pole at his 67th attempt. Afterwards, an emotional Felipe thanked the team, but also his father, who supported his career in its early days.

While there are still 309.356 kilometres of racing to go before tomorrow afternoon's chequered flag, Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro has put itself in the best possible shape at this critical point in the season, as it is an all-red front row, with Michael Schumacher lining up alongside his team-mate. However, the battle in both championships could not be closer as the red at the front is matched by an all-blue second row for Renault with Fernando Alonso in third ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella. There are a total of three Germans in the top six on the grid, as apart from Michael, his brother Ralf is fifth for Toyota ahead of the BMW-Sauber of Nick Heidfeld.

Massa put in a faultless performance from start to finish, while Schumacher uncharacteristically made a couple of driving errors. However, with the final Q3 section of the session being run on a heavier fuel lad, it was Michael who had the honour of setting the actual quickest time of the afternoon during the Q2 part of proceedings.