Zoom Massa dominant in qualifying with Ferrari

Qualifying for the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix saw championship hopeful Felipe Massa dominate proceedings to take pole position by over six-tenths of a second from Lewis Hamilton. Kimi Raikkonen starts third in the second McLaren and here’s what the fastest three had to say after a late night run.

Q: Felipe, Monaco, Valencia and now here the inaugural night race at Singapore. What an achievement for you.
Felipe MASSA: I think first of all the car was just perfect, you know, so nice to drive smoothly and then I managed to do a perfect lap and that always helps when you have a good car and you don’t make any single mistakes in whatever corner you go. That is always a great achievement.

Q: What does it feel like to put in a perfect lap at a venue like this, the first ever night race in the history of Formula One?
FM: It was just a great feeling. When you come into the last corner you say I cannot make any mistake. You are not trying to go on the limit at the last corner as you know everything could be worse than it actually is, so I just made it corner by corner, perfect, not making any single mistake and then when I came to the last corner I said ‘maybe I will take it a little bit easier’ but I couldn’t. I did the last corner quickly anyway but the feeling is so fantastic. When you get the best from the car it is one of the most incredible feelings you can have as a racing driver, so when you achieve what you want it is always a great achievement.

Q: Your thoughts on driving on this track at night?
FM: It is pretty tough. It is a very difficult track. To get every corner right is really difficult. The lights, I mean the visibility, I don’t think is a big problem to be honest. We have visibility, so you don’t care, you just want to take the best out of the car, so you don’t really think whether you are during the night or during the day, you just think about what you have to do. It will be a very difficult race for sure. Concentration will be 10 times more important than a normal circuit, even maybe a little bit more difficult than Monaco as there are more corners, so it won’t be easy.

Q: And how has the rhythm of the weekend worked out for you and the team?
FM: Yeah, for sure I think the work of the team in a way is exactly similar to other races but in completely different times. I got here on Tuesday and tried to go to bed very late but already Wednesday, at three o’clock in the morning, I was walking the track with my family, with Rubens Barrichello and his wife and everybody. We were having fun but also learning the track. Every day I was trying to do similar things, I think everybody in the team as well, trying to use more the European time than the time from here. It is a little bit strange but fun in a way.