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Massa takes pole; Force India's Fisichella in 17th

By Staff

Sepang, Malaysia, Mar 22 (UNI) After a terrible start to the Grand Prix season in Australia, the Ferrari team came roaring back with Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen finishing one-two to take the pole positions in the qualifying round of the Malyasian Formula One Grand Prix here today.

Lewis Hamilton, the winner of the Australian Grand Prix will start in the second row in fourth place in final race tomorrow.

For Ferrari doing well here was very important after both Massa and Raikkonen not finishing the Australian Grand Prix, they came back really strongly with Massa taking the pole position and Raikkonen followig in second position.

For the Force India team, Giancarlo Fisichella finished in 17th place, while the second driver Adrian Sutil was placed 21.

Driving in hot and humid conditions under heavy cloud cover, Massa was joined on the front row by Formula One world champion team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, who lapped 0.482 seconds slower than the pole sitter's time of 1:35.748.

The McLarens of Hekki Kovalainen and championship leader Lewis Hamilton will make up the second row, ahead of Italy's Jarno Trulli in a Toyota.

McLaren never looked like matching the pace of the Ferraris and Heikki Kovalainen settled for third ahead of British team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Jarno Trulli took a surprise fifth for Toyota ahead of the two BMW Saubers.

The newly-laid track in Sepang suited the Ferraris and Massa repeated last year's feat by taking pole again.

The Brazilian was comfortably clear of the field and his team-mate Raikkonen and was pleased to take pole after a disastrous opening Grand Prix in Australia, where he was forced to retire from the race.

Results from qualifying for the Malaysia Grand Prix: 1 Felipe Massa (Brazil) Ferrari 1:35.748 2 Kimi Raikkonen (Finland) Ferrari 1:36.230 3 Heikki Kovalainen (Finland) McLaren 1:36.613 4 Lewis Hamilton (Britain) McLaren 1:36.709 5 Jarno Trulli (Italy) Toyota 1:36.711 6 Robert Kubica (Poland) BMW Sauber 1:36.727 7 Nick Heidfeld (Germany) BMW Sauber 1:36.753 8 Mark Webber (Australia) Red Bull 1:37.009 9 Fernando Alonso (Spain) Renault 1:38.450 10 Timo Glock (Germany) Toyota 1:39.656 11 Jenson Button (Britain) Honda 1:35.208 12 David Coulthard (Britain) Red Bull 1:35.408 13 Nelson Piquet (Brazil) Renault 1:35.562 14 Rubens Barrichello (Brazil) Honda 1:35.622 15 Sebastian Vettel (Germany) Toro Rosso 1:35.648 16 Nico Rosberg (Germany) Williams 1:35.670 17 Giancarlo Fisichella (Italy) Force India 1:36.240 18 Kazuki Nakajima (Japan) Williams 1:36.388 19 Sebastien Bourdais (France) Toro Rosso 1:36.677 20 Takuma Sato (Japan) Super Aguri 1:37.087 21 Adrian Sutil (Germany) Force India 1:37.101 22 Anthony Davidson (Britain) Super Aguri 1:37.481 UNI GS AB GC1712

Story first published: Thursday, August 24, 2017, 16:15 [IST]
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