Felipe, problems in Melbourne but you well and truly made up for them today.
Felipe Massa: Yes, I'm quite happy. Unfortunately Melbourne didn't end as I had hoped. It ended up that I started at the back but I'm not supposed to start completely last on the grid but here it looks just a little bit different, so I'm just looking forward to having a good race tomorrow. The race will be very very tough. Hopefully I can fight very hard from the beginning to the end and hopefully I can stay in my position, so it will be a dream.
A great qualifying lap by the look of it.
FM: Yeah, for sure, at the end of the day the McLaren was really really competitive, so we expect them to be competitive but they were really strong in qualifying and it just makes us work even harder to try to have a good race tomorrow but for sure, Fernando and Lewis showed that they are very competitive.
How good was that qualifying lap by your standards?
FM: It was a great lap. I just tried to do everything I could at the last attempt. At the second attempt I had traffic so I couldn't improve my lap time and then the last one was just a clean lap. There was just a slight shower, I thought it was going to be a problem at the end of the lap but it just held off at the right time and it helped me a lot but it was a great lap.
Fernando, on the front row again and this time splitting the two Ferraris.
Fernando Alonso: Yeah, I think it has been a good day for us. To be on the first row again for the second consecutive race is good news for us, I think. We are starting from nothing, from zero and we are growing up together with Bridgestone and we are learning more about the tyres, learning about the car as well, and as I said: two races, two times on the first row, hopefully we can complete the job tomorrow.
We saw Kimi get away from you in Melbourne; how do you see the race going tomorrow?
FA: Well, we will see. I think we have to be realistic and see how our pace - maybe on the long runs - is not as good as the Ferrari but they seem very very constant on the long runs but we have to say also that we improved the car last week. Looking in that area, in that direction and we saw a much more competitive package this weekend in the McLaren Mercedes car than we saw in Melbourne so I expect the race will be more competitive than Melbourne and hopefully we will have some good fights with the Ferraris.
Kimi, it looked as though you had a little bit of a difficult build-up to qualifying, a bit of a question mark over your engine after the Australian Grand Prix. Talk us through the weekend from your point of view?
Kimi Raikkonen: Yes, it's been a little bit guessing what's going to happen but the engine is OK in the end, so there's nothing wrong with it. It has been a little bit difficult to get the car right but it isn't too bad. I think over one lap I am suffering more than over the race distance so I think for the race it will be OK. I was expecting to have a little bit of difficulty. We will see how it goes tomorrow. I think we will have a strong race anyhow.
A lot of the drivers are talking about changing conditions and how difficult it is for you to get the cars set up for the Sepang circuit. Can you talk a little bit about that?
KR: The conditions when I tested were a bit different. The car was good but it only needs a little change on the surface and it can be much more difficult. It has been slightly hard but anyhow we are in a good position for the race which is the main thing and we will see what happens tomorrow.
Give us an idea what it's going to be like in the race tomorrow in this Malaysian heat?
FM: It will be like racing inside a sauna! It's going to be very hard for all of us. I think everybody has been trying to prepare our shape for the race during this last two weeks but it will be a very tough race, we will lose a lot of water so it's important to prepare everything we can and drink a lot tonight to be 100 percent for tomorrow. Drink water not other things!
Press Conference
Felipe, this pole must be a relief after Australia.
FM: Yeah, after what happened in the first race I'm quite happy. The whole weekend the car really responded very well in every practice session, so qualifying was really great for me, a big fight with Fernando so he really did a good job in qualifying compared to… also this morning they were quite strong but in qualifying they showed very good performance so tomorrow will be very very difficult but I'm quite happy to set another pole position, especially at the beginning of the championship and seeing what happened in the last race so hopefully we can carry on like that.
Fastest in both sessions yesterday but not this morning; were you quite happy this morning?
FM: Yeah, this morning was not so bad, just working on the car for the race, still not really 100 percent preparation for the qualifying so I think it was a good morning and it was a great afternoon as well, so hopefully tomorrow we can carry on like that.
Tell us about the track conditions during qualifying?
FM: Well, for sure the temperature here is getting high quite quickly in the morning already so we saw this morning that we already had 48 degree surface and in the qualifying it was already 50 so it's quite difficult to drive in these conditions. The car is sliding quite a lot and it's not so easy, so I think it's quite difficult to put the lap together, so fortunately I could manage to put my lap together in the last attempt and I'm quite happy for that.
