It was a day of mixed fortunes and missed opportunities for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro at the Hungaroring. The good news is that, despite encountering some traffic on his final quick lap, Felipe Massa secured yet another front row grid position. The Brazilian will start tomorrow's Hungarian Grand Prix from second place alongside pole man, McLaren-Mercedes' Kimi Raikkonen.

However, Michael Schumacher did not even make it through to the final part of qualifying that decides the top ten places on the grid. This was because of a complex time penalty imposed on him by the Stewards of the Meeting, after they judged that the Ferrari man had passed a couple of cars while red flags were being waved to stop the morning free practice session, after Jenson Button had blown up his Honda. In the end, the German was credited with the twelfth best time, although he will start at least from eleventh place, as the aforementioned Button drops ten places on the grid as he needs an engine change. It was a missed opportunity to make significant inroads into Fernando Alonso's title lead. Late on Saturday night the Stewards judged that the Renault man had deliberately driven at Robert Doornbos in the Red Bull car and had also passed a car under a yellow flag and he was given the same penalty as Schumacher. The reigning world champion has therefore qualified fifteenth and we can expect an interesting fight between the two championship leaders. The second row of the grid sees Rubens Barrichello in third place for Honda a team that continues to improve in recent races. Button should have been alongside his team-mate, but fourth place now goes to the McLaren-Mercedes of Pedro de la Rosa. Row three features the Williams of Mark Webber in fifth spot and the Toyota of Ralf Schumacher.

Jean Todt: "Obviously, this qualifying session did not go the way we might have expected. Felipe fought for pole position right to the end and managed to put his Ferrari on the front row of the grid after a great qualifying performance. It is clear that the Ferrari package, made up of the 248 F1 and the Bridgestone tyres is very competitive, but Michael's penalty for what happened in this morning's free practice made it more or less impossible for him to get through to the final part of qualifying. Thanks to some fantastic laps, Michael did the best he could, which equates to eleventh place on the grid. I do not wish to comment on the Stewards' decision: everyone can draw their own conclusions. On a track where overtaking is particularly difficult, the decisive factors will be the same as ever: reliability, strategy, tyre performance, teamwork and the performance of the drivers. It's possible that the tyres will play an even more important role than usual. Obviously, we will only find out about this in the race. For our part, we will do our utmost to produce the best result possible.
 

Felipe Massa: "It was a good qualifying and it is always important to start from the front row. Maybe I could have been on pole, but I had a bit of traffic even from the moment I came out of pit lane on my out lap for my second timed run. That meant my tyres were not up to temperature, especially going into the first corner. Apart from that, I am happy with the package I have. We have worked well over the past two days, fine tuning the car and trying to get the most out of the Bridgestone tyres. I think that even on old tyres, I will be able to maintain a good pace and I will be out to get the best result possible."

Michael Schumacher: "I prefer not to go into a long explanation of what happened this morning. Everyone can form their own opinion, looking at the replay. I would rather just concentrate on preparing for tomorrow's race as well as possible in these unfortunate circumstances. Eleventh place was the best I could hope for, taking into account the penalty given me by the Stewards. At least it means I start from the clean side of the track. I hope to make a good start and move up a few places and I will be trying to make the best of it tomorrow."

Ross Brawn: "Naturally, we are very disappointed about what happened and by that I am referring of course to events involving Michael in this morning's free practice. It's true he made a mistake, but I leave it to you to decide if the penalty was fair. It's a shame because we had a great potential and we were unable to exploit it. Felipe drove a really good qualifying and probably lost pole because of a little bit of traffic as he was coming out of pit lane to start his final run. Track conditions improved and the tyres have begun to behave as we had expected, which is encouraging. The 248 F1 are well balanced and we will try and make the most of this situation. The race will be very tough and we have to think carefully about the strategic decisions we have to make before and during the race."

Qualifying session: Felipe Massa: 2nd 1.19.886 11 laps chassis 252; Michael Schumacher: 12° 1.19.410* 3 laps chassis 254; + 2" as per Stewards decision number 29; Temperature: aur 21 °C track 27 °