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Brilliant pole for Massa.

Sat 24 May, 03:00 PM


Maranello-based outfit locks out front row.

Ferrari's Felipe Massa will start Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix from pole position having topped the times right near the end of the top-ten shootout, edging out his team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen and the two McLarens.

While McLaren had been the pre-race favourites and set the pace in practice on Thursday and this morning, Ferrari led the way throughout qualifying, with Massa topping the times in all three sessions.

In the end the Brazilian beat Raikkonen by just 0.028 seconds, despite the fact he has never really liked racing at the Principality.

Lewis Hamilton meanwhile had to be content with third - albeit just five hundredths off the pole on a 1 minute 15.839 seconds.

The Brit was that little bit off securing top spot in all three sessions and will now be hoping that the Scuderia went light and that he might have a bit of a fuel advantage on Sunday.

Heikki Kovalainen took the sister MP4-23 to fourth, recovering well after hitting the barriers during final practice. In the end though he was unable to match Lewis and finished up three tenths slower.

BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica will line up in fifth after another impressive showing in his F1.08. Indeed the Pole was just six thousandths of a second slower than Heikki, while Nico Rosberg will start alongside him on the third row.

Rosberg was another one of those that shined and the Williams man was punching above his weight in Q1, Q2 and Q3 - his best lap in Q3 a 1m 16.548s.

Fernando Alonso will start seventh having wrestled the absolute maximum from his Renault, with Jarno Trulli coming in eighth for Toyota, followed by Red Bull Racing duo Mark Webber and David Coulthard.

DC didn't complete a single lap in Q3, as he suffered a high-speed crash right at the end of the second session. The Scot was coming out of the tunnel and braking for the harbour chicane, when his car snapped to the right and went into the barriers, sending his RB4 straight down the escaped road. Although shaken he did not suffer any injuries and should be fine to race.

Timo Glock was eleventh and missed out on getting through to the final shoot-out by less than seven hundredths of a second, having posted a 1m 15.907s lap, compared to the 1m 15.839s lap of DC.

Further down the order Honda duo Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello came in twelfth and fifteenth, with Nick Heidfeld and Kazuki Nakajima sandwiched between the two RA108s.

Heidfeld was strangely off the pace all through qualifying and almost a second off Kubica. The German now faces a difficult Sunday afternoon on a track that is notoriously tough to overtake on.

Of the rest Toro Rosso's Sebastien Bourdais and Sebastian Vettel both went out in Q1, as did Nelson Piquet Jr, who continues to struggle in the #2 Renault.

Force India's Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella brought up the rear, neither able to break into the 1m 16s bracket.

For the full qualifying times click here.