Michael, here, it appears that everything is heading in the right direction for you.
Michael Schumacher: We have been very strong all weekend long, very consistent, had a good pace in general. I’m very surprised about the amount (of time). I would rather give up something and use it for other races because to be almost a second or something ahead of the rest is a lot. But it shows that when the package works, we can be extremely strong. We have been suffering a little bit in the last races where things didn’t work out so well but here, on this circuit, everything just matches perfectly.

Very quick on light fuel and in race set-up here.
MS: Yeah, it all means we are quick, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if we have a good chance to win tomorrow.

How was the qualifying lap from your point of view, perfect lap?
MS: The first one was very good, the second one – obviously I had nothing to lose, so I just pushed a little bit harder and that didn’t work out exactly. I did exactly the same lap time again, I lost a tenth, because the fuel effect is about roughly that, somewhere around the track but by the look of it, it was still enough.

Felipe, front row of the grid for Ferrari as in Bahrain. A slight outbraking manoeuvre with Fernando Alonso in that last session!
Felipe Massa: We do everything in qualifying to avoid traffic. I had good speed on the straight, I took his tow and I had the opportunity and I passed him. I was a little bit freer for doing a lap on those tyres we saw that straight away when the green light went on, it was a little bit more like a normal race start, so anyway, I couldn’t do my lap. We are on the front row and that’s the most important thing.

Very very quick this morning like Michael, but not quite as quick in this qualifying session. Was that the traffic situation?
FM: No, no, not really the traffic. Honestly, my car, in qualifying, was a little bit more oversteering and in the first qualifying, in the first session, I had a little bit of oversteer, in the second one I had even more, so I didn’t want to push even more to make a mistake, so in the end it’s OK.

Giancarlo, well done, but what does it look like to you, in terms of your race strategy for tomorrow?
Giancarlo Fisichella: Well, we are really surprised by Ferrari’s pace, which is almost a second here. Already this morning we were very surprised about that when they ran on scrubbed tyres and they have been able to be really quick, very competitive. So I think there is no question, they are quicker than us here in the USA, but we have a long race to do tomorrow, it’s going to be a tough race for the tyres, physically, mentally, so we’ve got a chance to do well and I hope to score lots of points and get on the podium.

Can you be specific about where you think the Ferrari is quicker here than the Renault?
GF: We don’t know why because I don’t know what changed with them but as the last race, we have the same so maybe it’s the characteristics of the circuit or - I don’t know – maybe Bridgestone tyres are working better than our Michelin tyres. I have no idea.

Michael, returning to you; America obviously a very important market for Ferrari. Talk a little bit about your time in America and what it means for you to be on the pole here at Indy.
MS: It’s obviously the only race we have done here in America and it has always been a great time for us coming here. We as Ferrari have been very successful here. I very much look forward to put myself into the books as the fifth time winner tomorrow. That would be ideal, but as we said it’s a long way to go before we can achieve that. Nevertheless, it is one of the 18 races where you get ten points for a win. We need to make sure we score as many… and the gap as big as possible to Fernando who is on fifth position, but then we will see what comes out at the end. The market itself naturally is a big market for all manufacturers, so we like to do well here. We like to please our supporters and fans. They were obviously a little bit disappointed last year so we hope we can make up for that. So let’s cross fingers and see what happens tomorrow.

Press Conference

So, Michael, what is it with you and Indianapolis? This is a great bounce-back.
MS: What is it with us? I mean that's probably the better question because if we have- we try always to maximize our opportunities and package, for whatever reason we were not able to do so in the last races. Here it just fits in relation to the other guys extremely well. What is the explanation for it? I don't know other than here straightaway we went out and had grip, and other races we didn't. So it's characteristic of little details which have big effects. I've been talking about those very often, and here is a little bit of proof of that. It's a long race anyway from here to go, but naturally with this much advantage, we have vast opportunities. Having Felipe in the first row as well, I mean, that's just ideal for us.

It was an interesting start to the session, wasn't it?
MS: Yeah. It was a good way to figure out what may happen tomorrow at the start anyway. Obviously we lost out initially, but been quick enough to recap.