Engine confusion

Unless their respective teams discover engine problems after today's qualifying session, it seems certain that Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella has secured the third pole position of his career, that the Roman shares the front row with Jenson Button in the Honda and that Nico Rosberg will start his second ever Formula One Grand Prix from the second row of the grid in third place.

However, behind this trio, the picture is somewhat confusing, because so many drivers have had to change engines and take the various penalties that this involves.

Both Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro drivers are among those affected by the obvious reliability issues with the new formula V8 engines. Felipe Massa started the weekend with a fresh engine after a fault was detected after the race at the Sakhir track. This automatically meant a ten place penalty on the grid. However, further signs of engine trouble meant the team decided that the Brazilian would have a further engine change on race morning, thus starting from the back of the grid, with the advantage of a fresh engine, extra sets of tyres and freedom to choose fuel loads. Michael Schumacher also required an engine change prior to qualifying. He actually set the fourth quickest time which will see him drop ten places and start fourteenth.

These changes turn row 2 into an all Williams-Cosworth affair, with Mark Webber joining Rosberg. And the third row features both McLaren-Mercedes, with Juan Pablo Montoya fifth ahead of Kimi Raikkonen. It is fair to say that, even having changed engines, the Scuderia engineers are somewhat concerned about the race, which even when running the well proven V10 engines, was always very tough. The team is working hard to identify the cause of the current problem.