Barcelona, 12th May 200

The main noise to be heard in the Circuit de Catalunya paddock this weekend is the cry of "Alonso, Alonso," from all his fans in the guest suites above the pits. But this afternoon, those cries were silenced as the local hero was beaten to pole position by Felipe Massa. The on-form Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro man took his F2007 to a third consecutive pole position, beating Fernando Alonso's Renault by just three hundredths of a second. It was an exciting climax to the qualifying as, in the first part of Q3, Alonso had been almost half a second quicker than a group made up of the two Prancing Horse cars and his McLaren- Mercedes team-mate, Lewis Hamilton. Lining up behind Felipe in third place on the second row is his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, who has Hamilton alongside him in fourth. Robert Kubica took his BMW-Sauber to fifth place, while Jarno Trulli completes the top six for Toyota. Today, it was announced that the Spanish Grand Prix has a contract to run here at the Barcelona circuit until 2016. As for tomorrow's race, it will be interesting to see if changes made to the track configuration in the name of safety also have the anticipated effect of adding some more overtaking opportunities.