F1 - Raikkonen pips home star Alonso to pole in Spain

Alonso just missed out on a home pole position to old tital rival Kimi Raikkonen

Kimi Raikkonen denied crowd hero Fernando Alonso claiming a hugely unexpected pole position for his home Spanish Grand Prix with a brilliant final lap at Barcelona.

The world champion was on course for a disappointing grid slot until he uncorked a 1m21.813s lap on his final run to beat his resurgent Renault rival to pole by under a tenth of a second.

For a few moments before that point, it had looked as though Alonso would take one of the most unlikely poles for some time after a stunning final lap of his own that pushed the then quickest man Felipe Massa into second place.

The double world champion punched in air the delight after crossing the line in his heavily upgraded R28, which just three weeks ago struggled to get into Q3.

But Raikkonen was coming up fast in the final sector at Catalunya and ultimately took his first pole of the season, and just his fourth for Ferrari overall.

Whether Alonso’s front-row slot is a result of a crowd-pleasing low-fuel run will be seen in Sunday’s race, but what is in no doubt is the former champions are much more of a force here than they have been for some time.

The top two’s improvements pushed Massa down to third after the Brazilian couldn’t improve his original benchmark time on his own second run.

It was even worse for the McLarens, however, who will start behind BMW’s Robert Kubica in fifth and sixth.

The two MP4-23s had looked closer to the Ferraris throughout qualifying than free practice had suggested, but Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen still couldn’t do better than the third row.


A lowly qualifying spot for the two McLarens, Kovalainen fairing worst, qualifying sixth

Red Bull’s Mark Webber was a fine seventh, ahead of his fellow qualifying specialist Jarno Trulli in the Toyota.

Nick Heidfeld was pushed down to ninth, although the half a second gap to his BMW team-mate Kubica suggests he may be fairly heavy on fuel.

Renault’s impressive day was rounded off by its rookie ace Nelson Piquet Jr who will start from a career-high 10th after making Q3 for the first time.

Qualifying 2

Massa needed two fast laps to set the pace in Q2, although Ferrari still wasn’t enjoying the superiority its Friday from suggested it may have.

The Brazilian’s time of 1m20.584s was just 0.01s faster than Kubica as BMW continued to threaten with Raikkonen two tenths back in third.

A world away from his Bahrain struggles, Alonso comfortably made Q3 this time as his R28 showed more promise to put him ahead of potential pole-chasers Heidfeld, Kovalainen and Hamilton.

Piquet Jr backed up the Spaniard’s pace to take his first place in the final phase, with regular Q3 runners Trulli and Webber joining him.

Honda had been looking to get at least one of its cars into the final phase, but missed out on bumping Webber out by just 0.06s with Rubens Barrichello.

Williams also failed to make the cut, although Kazuki Nakajima (12th) outqualified team-mate Nico Rosberg (15th) for the first time by a healthy two tenths margin.

Button was outqualified by Barrichello again and will start 13th, ahead of the second Toyota of Timo Glock.

And Sebastien Bourdais completed another encouraging qualifying session by making it into Q2 unlike his Toro Rosso team-mate Sebastian Vettel.


Qualifying 1

Raikkonen fired a warning shot to the rest of the field by taking the early advantage in qualifying.

The world champion set an impressive best lap time of 1m20.701s to head the times by over 0.4s.

However it took the world champion three fast laps to get to that benchmark, as he took the unusual step of completing two separate runs on the hard tyres despite being already comfortably assured a place in Q1.

Trulli made a late improvement to end up second, with Alonso continuing to lead give his home crowd something to cheer with third.

Hamilton had led the way for most of Q1 after a solid run and ended up fourth, with Piquet Jr and Kubica fifth and sixth respectively.

The big shock of the first phase was David Coulthard’s failure to make the cut for the second successive grand prix, despite the Red Bull driver’s fine form throughout free practice.

RBR thought it would have enough pace to make the second phase without using the softer rubber, but the gamble backfired as Coulthard hit traffic on his out lap and couldn’t warm the tyres up to the optimum temperature for his ultimately slow last effort.

Vettel couldn’t match his Toro Rosso team-mate’s qualifying exploits once again and will start 18th, ahead of the Force Indias who’s practice promise didn’t materialise into a Q2 berth.

Super Aguri was predictably at the back, but Anthony Davidson can take some pleasure from outqualifying team-mate Takuma Sato and lapping just a tenth of a second behind Adrian Sutil’s Force India.


Kimi grabbed pole, with Alonso pipping Massa for second, but both Ferraris are on the clean side

Provisional starting grid for the Spanish GP
1. RAIKKONEN Ferrari
2. ALONSO Renault
3. MASSA Ferrari
4. KUBICA BMW
5. HAMILTON McLaren
6. KOVALAINEN McLaren
7. WEBBER Red Bull
8. TRULLI Toyota
9. HEIDFELD BMW
10. PIQUET Renault
11. BARRICHELLO Honda
12. NAKAJIMA Williams
13. BUTTON Honda
14. GLOCK Toyota
15. ROSBERG Williams
16. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso
17. COULTHARD Red Bull
18. VETTEL Toro Rosso
19. FISICHELLA Force India
20. SUTIL Force India
21. DAVIDSON Super Aguri
22. SATO Super Aguri

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