Productive Hungarian Qualifying for Bridgestone

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro's Felipe Massa is set to head the Bridgestone challenge for tomorrow's Hungarian Grand Prix after securing himself a front row seat on the grid next to pole sitter Kimi Raikkonen. Massa's team-mate, Michael Schumacher, qualified in twelfth place after incurring a two second penalty for an incident in the morning's third practice session.

The penalty was added to each of his fastest qualifying lap times and so, although in principle the fastest man in qualifying with a 1m18.875s, it was not quite fast enough. In a bizarre twist of fate, Schumacher's main title rival, Fernando Alonso, was also handicapped by a two second penalty for two separate incidents in Friday's second practice session. Alonso consequently qualified 15th, three places behind Schumacher. Several of Bridgestone's remaining runners meanwhile had a more productive qualifying with WilliamsF1's Mark Webber and Panasonic Toyota Racing's Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli all making it into the top nine giving them a chance of points tomorrow. However, while track conditions have slowly been improving, the weather could still be the deciding factor in Sunday's race.

Hisao Suganuma, Technical Manager - Bridgestone Motorsport, said: "This morning's third free practice demonstrated that the track was still in a green condition, producing high levels of graining on the tyres. However, it is evolving as time goes on and we were able to see some strong performances on our tyres this afternoon during qualifying. Track conditions should have improved further by tomorrow, helping the tyres even more. It is a real shame that Michael had
his penalty as he was the quickest driver today but under the circumstances we have to make the best out of the situation. He gave it his best shot this afternoon and will almost certainly be a strong challenger tomorrow.

Felipe just missed out on pole with a very strong qualifying performance and stands a very good chance in tomorrow's race. Mark Webber, Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli also had a good qualifying session and have given themselves a good chance of advancing their positions in the race. From a tyre point of view it seems that tomorrow's weather could be very similar to conditions today so even though we believe the Bridgestone tyres will run well, it could be tough."

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Ross Brawn, Technical Director - Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, said: "I think we're seeing that the track is getting better as more running takes place and the Bridgestone tyres are starting to work more effectively now. The cars are running well and considering the circumstances we now need to make the most of the cars and the tyres."