Interlagos, 1st November

Felipe Massa gave his home fans exactly what they wanted this afternoon and they roared their approval, drowning out the noise of the F1 engines, as the Paulista secured his third consecutive pole position at the track where he first began racing in go-karts when he was a small boy. It was a bravura performance at just the right moment, going into the most important race of the season. At the wheel of the second F2008, Kimi Raikkonen set the third fastest time, hampered by a bit of understeer, to line up behind his team-mate, who shares the front row with the Toyota of Jarno Trulli. But as Kimi pointed out after the session, on this track, starting on the "pole" side is a definite advantage and therefore better than starting from second spot. Alongside Kimi, we find Felipe's only rival for the title, Lewis Hamilton who took fourth spot in his McLaren-Mercedes. Row 3 sees Heikki Kovalainen in fifth place for McLaren, with the Renault of Fernando Alonso on his outside. On hand to congratulate the two Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro drivers, after successfully negotiating the first key step of the weekend, was Sergio Marchionne, the CEO of the FIAT Group, who is attending this race in the company of senior management from FIAT Brazil.


First and third is a good start, but Interlagos can be a treacherous venue: it is a fantastic circuit with so many challenges, its fast corners, it's changes of gradient, a dramatic first corner corkscrew that dives down the hill past the pit lane exit and the fact it is a short lap, so that backmarkers can become a problem much earlier in the race than usual. However, tomorrow the most difficult factor to deal with could be the weather: after today's warm and dry conditions, hotter weather will bring with it a strong chance of heavy rain storms in the afternoon. In the past, a wet Interlagos has produced some completely unbelievable scenarios and despite the best efforts of the team strategists, accidents and Safety Car periods are hard to plan for. Whatever the conditions, it seems that the 2008 Formula 1 season will come to a thrilling finale tomorrow.