10/05/2008 14:10

Istanbul - Ferrari's Brazilian driver Felipe Massa's love affair with the Formula One Turkish Grand Prix continued on Saturday as for the third successive year he took pole position.

The 27-year-old is on course to complete a hat-trick of wins at Istanbul Park after taking top spot for the second time this season, and the 11th time in his career, by well over half-a-second from McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen.

Massa clearly loves the 5.338km track and he blasted round in a best time of one minute 27.617seconds to see off Kovalainen, who had gone quickest moments earlier, by almost 0.2secs.

It was a brave effort from Finland' Kovalainen who was only given the green light to compete on Thursday following his horrifying 165mph smash at the last race in Barcelona two weeks ago.

Kovalainen's McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton was third fastest just ahead of reigning champion and title pacesetter Kimi Raikkonen in the other Ferrari.

Finnish racer Raikkonen leads the standings from Hamilton, last year's runner-up, by nine points going into the fifth round of the 18-race season on Sunday.

Second session

Poland's Robert Kubica was fifth for BMW followed by Red Bull's Australian driver Mark Webber who had been quickest in final practice.

Brazilian Rubens Barrichello went out in the second session and will start his record-breaking 257th grand prix in 12th place on the grid for Honda Racing.

Barrichello, 35, a nine-time winner with Ferrari during his 16-season career will finally break the mark set by Italy's Riccardo Patrese when he retired in 1993.

Others who also missed out on the top 10 shoot-out along with Barrichello were teammate Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg of Williams, Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel and Toyota's Timo Glock.

The qualifying rules were tweaked following the demise of Super Aguri which reduced the field to 20. Instead of six drivers dropping out at the end of each of the first two sessions this was cut to five.

Renault's Nelson Piquet was the biggest name to bow out in the first session along with Kazuki Nakajima of Williams, Toro Rosso's Sebastien Bourdais and the Force India duo of Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil.