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Massa leads Ferrari front row in Monaco

Sat 24th, May 2008

Monte Carlo, Monaco (Sports Network) - Felipe Massa will start on the pole for Formula One's glamour event - The Grand Prix of Monaco. The No.2 Ferrari circled the tight 2.075-mile, street course in one minute, 15.787 seconds.

The pole victory was Massa's third of the season, second in a row and 12th of his F1 career.

The last four pole winners have gone on to win the race. Jarno Trulli swept both pole and race in 2004 and was followed by Kimi Raikkonen in 2005 and Fernando Alonso in 2006 and 2007. In all, 22 of 54 races have been won from the driver who took the first green flag out front.

"I can't believe I'm on pole," said Massa. "I was able to do a perfect lap and in Monaco it is almost impossible to do a perfect lap."

Starting on the front row with Massa will be teammate Raikkonen, the series points leader, who posted a second-best time of 1:15.815.

McLaren teammates Lewis Hamilton (1:15.839) and Heikki Kovalainen (1:16.165) will make up row two.

Massa won the first session, which saw the elimination of five drivers, including Giancarlo Fisichella, Nelson Piquet and Sebastien Bourdais.

Massa duplicated his effort in the second session, but in a surprise, BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld, fifth in the standings, failed to reach the final 10. David Coulthard did qualify for Q3, but crashed on his final lap of Q2 and did not participate in the final qualifying session.

The nature of the street circuit makes it very hard to simulate during test sessions, resulting in this being one of the most unpredictable races. It is a tricky track with plenty of slow-speed corners, forcing drivers to work hard throughout the 78-lap race.

However, despite such confining streets and very low average speeds, the cars still manage to reach speeds in excess of 175 m.p.h. This, coupled with the absence of gravel traps between the track and unforgiving steel barriers, leaves the drivers with no margin for error if they want to see the checkered flag.

"Monaco is the most difficult circuit on the calendar because of the nature of the street circuit and its surface. You're never more than a few inches from the barriers making overtaking a perilous task if not impossible," said three- time world champion Niki Lauda.

On top of that, weather forecasters are predicting rain for tomorrow.

The race begins on Sunday at 8 a.m. (et) and is the start to a great Sunday of racing which includes the 92nd running of the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600.

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