Valencia Qualifying

A topsy turvy qualifying session at the new track. The grip levels were changing all session, and the couple of spots of rain probably did not help.

The Toro Rosso’s both made it through to the Q3 session, showing up their Red Bull cousins, and oddly showing how much better the Ferrari engine is than the Renault one.

It looked for a while like the front row was going to be without either a Ferrari or McLaren, but in the end Felipe drove a great lap to take to top spot, and Lewis had a great lap to make second spot.

Robert Kubica showed his skill at the heavy breaking tracks, and takes the third spot, with Kimi again not able to match his Brazilian team mates times.

Heikki then put’s the other McLaren on row three, joined with Sebastian Vettel in the fast Toro Rosso, behind him Jarno Trulli in the Toyota, with a great drive considering that he had almost no running this morning in free practice due to gearbox issues.

So it could turn out to be a very interesting race tomorrow. Safety cars will be prevalent if there are any bumps, and there probably will be with the run into the fast turn 1 and slow turn 2.

source

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3	Laps
1	2	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:38.176	1:37.859	1:38.989	19
2	22	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.464	1:37.954	1:39.199	15
3	4	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:38.347	1:38.050	1:39.392	18
4	1	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:38.703	1:38.229	1:39.488	21
5	23	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.656	1:38.120	1:39.937	18
6	15	Sebastian Vettel	STR-Ferrari	1:38.141	1:37.842	1:40.142	19
7	11	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:37.948	1:37.928	1:40.309	21
8	3	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:38.738	1:37.859	1:40.631	19
9	7	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:38.595	1:38.336	1:40.721	18
10	14	Sebastien Bourdais	STR-Ferrari	1:38.622	1:38.417	1:40.750	18
11	8	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	1:38.667	1:38.428		15
12	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:38.268	1:38.435		12
13	12	Timo Glock	Toyota	1:38.532	1:38.499		14
14	10	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:38.559	1:38.515		15
15	6	Nelsinho Piquet	Renault	1:38.787	1:38.744		15
16	16	Jenson Button	Honda	1:38.880			6
17	9	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	1:39.235			9
18	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	1:39.268			10
19	17	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:39.811			10
20	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	1:39.943			9

Massa determined to put Brit GP behind him

Felipe Massa insists he will not dwell on a nightmare British GP that saw the Ferrari driver trail home dead last in the race and lose the outright lead in the standings.

The Brazilian led the Drivers' standings by two points after his third win of the season in France just over two weeks ago, but struggled at Silverstone despite setting the fastest overall time in Friday's practice sessions.

A heavy crash in the first of those practice sessions restricted his set-up time in the car, while a delay in the pits during third qualifying on Saturday meant Massa lined up ninth on the starting grid, from where things just got worse.

The 27-year-old was unable to cope in the difficult wet conditions at Silverstone, the driver himself admitting to committing "many mistakes."

By the end of the 60-lap race, Massa had spun the Ferrari five times and was running 13th and last, two laps down on race winner Lewis Hamilton.

"It was a very tough race, very difficult to keep the car on the track," said Massa.

"It was definitely a race to forget. It was not just a bad race but a bad weekend.

"For sure I was in trouble to drive the car in the wet, and I made so many mistakes.

"Many of them were just because of the aqua-planing. I couldn't hold the car, even on the straight. The conditions were very difficult and sometimes these things can happen.

"This Silverstone weekend is one to be wiped out. On Friday I had an accident, Saturday there was the problem in qualifying and Sunday a series of mistakes at all levels."

Massa's failure to score allowed McLaren driver Hamilton to pull level at the top of the standings, while Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen completes the trio of leaders on 48 points after coming home in fourth place.

The Brazilian is adamant there is nothing to be learned from his elementary mistakes at Silverstone, and has already turned his attentions to the next race at Hockenheim on July 20.

"We need to think about the next one and not go back and start to see what's happened today," he continued.

"We need to think about the next race. We need to concentrate. We know that we are competitive.

"We have to look ahead, because there is still a very long way to go in the Championship and once again, we've seen that it only takes one result to turn the situation around.

"After nine races I am in the lead in the classification and I have every chance to fight for the title all the way to the end."

Win a ride with Schumacher

One fan could win "the ride of a lifetime" next to seven-time F1 World Champion Michael Schumacher at this year's Race of Champions.

The events organisers have announced that this year they will be giving away one "incredible experience" to a lucky fan who enters their Race of Champions competition at www.raceofchampions.com.

The winner will be taken around the specially-constructed track inside Wembley Stadium in one of the event's two-seater cars as he practices ahead of the main event.

Schumacher finished second in last year's event, losing out to DTM driver Mattias Ekstrom. However, this year on December 14th the German will be aiming to go one

Ferrari boss: Mistakes shouldn't be happening

Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo has warned the Scuderia that a repeat of their British performance could cost them this year's World titles.

Ferrari struggled at Silverstone with Kimi Raikkonen only managing fourth place after the team opted against changing his tyres despite the pending rainfall.

This meant that when the rain did come down Raikkonen was without grip as this lasted a few laps before the team finally called him in.

As for Felipe Massa he finished dead last and two laps down after failing to keep his car facing forward. The Brazilian, who had a huge crash in Friday's first practice, spun no fewer than five times.

The Italian outfit's disappointing result meant that Lewis Hamilton was able to move to the top of the Drivers' standings while BMW and McLaren closed the gap to Ferrari in the Constructors' race.

"I really hope we can claim our eighth (Constructors') victory in ten years," Montezemolo told Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport.

"I'm sure we can win that title if we won't make those silly mistakes we made again.

"It's no surprise that I wasn't happy with what I saw at the British Grand Prix but hopefully it was a wise lesson for the team. I am convinced the team learned their lesson and that it won't happen again."

The Italian warned his team that having reached the halfway point of the season they cannot afford to make such mistakes.

"We are now half way into the 2008 Formula 1 season and we are leading the Constructors' Championship but we gave away a lot of points.

"That shouldn't be happening in the second half of the season," he said.

'Ferrari wanted Safety Car during British GP'

Ferrari urged the British GP race director to deploy the Safety Car during Sunday's event, it has been revealed.

According to ITV reporter Ted Kravitz, 'When it was very wet, at around three-quarters distance, a few teams, including Ferrari, were asking race director Charlie Whiting whether it was appropriate to bring out the Safety Car.'

The request was quite rightly rejected, not least because only two cars, the Hondas of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, were using the extreme wet tyres. Ferrari were instead undermined by their decision not to change Kimi Raikkonen's intermediate tyres at his first pit-stop - a decision that was made, according to Kravitz, by 'Kimi, Chris Dyer and Luca Baldisseri.' The Finn's involvement may explain why he refused to blame the team for the blunder after the race.

Meanwhile, perhaps the most interesting aspect of Kravitz's blog is his fury at Silverstone's race organisers after his car was towed away on Saturday afternoon.

'We'd parked where the security guards told us to park, but halfway through the day the parking control people from Silverstone Circuit changed the rules, and rather than knock on the ITV truck and tell us, they towed us,' he complains. 'So my personal experience of Silverstone's organisation this year was of an incompetent, shambolic, confused mess, which only got anywhere near sorting itself out by Sunday morning.'

Nor was Kravitz's opinion of the circuit enhanced by events on Sunday night when the vast majority of race-goers became stuck in a gridlocked traffic jam.

'It took me an hour to get out of the circuit gates - the longest ever at Silverstone. There's a reason Silverstone becomes the world's busiest heliport on race day: No other circuit manages to mess up the parking and access like Silverstone does.'