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Massa holds off Hamilton for Europe GP pole

The F1 circus turns toward the shores of Valencia this week for the Grand Prix of Europe. The street circuit in Valencia is a winding 3.4 mile course that highlights the beauty of this Old World city and it’s Mediterranean shore.

Today’s knock-out qualifying session had a few surprises at the tail end of the field, but the pole sitter is not surprising. Felipe Massa will start P1 for tomorrow’s race, but will have to fight Lewis Hamilton who starts from P2 for early control of the race. Massa was the class of the field, setting a torrid pace in the first few turns of the circuit that nobody, including Hamilton could compete with.

The first two rounds of qualifying were actually dominated by Sebastian Vettel in the Toro Rosso machine. The German phenom was quickest going into the final round of qualifying, and ended up qualifying fifth, which is a fantastic result for Torro Rosso. Likewise fellow Torro Rosso teammate, Sebastian Bourdais, qualified 10th in a solid showing.

The back end of the field yielded some big suprises as Button, Coulthard, Fisichella, Barrichello, Sutil all were knocked out in the first round!    And in a huge disappointment for the hometown fans, Fernando Alonso was knocked out in the second round of qualify, although he starts a respectable 12th.

Tomorrow’s race airs live on Speed TV at 7:30 AM ET.

Results for Qualifying:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3	Laps
1	2	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:38.176	1:37.859	1:38.989	19
2	22	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.464	1:37.954	1:39.199	15
3	4	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:38.347	1:38.050	1:39.392	18
4	1	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:38.703	1:38.229	1:39.488	21
5	23	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.656	1:38.120	1:39.937	18
6	15	Sebastian Vettel	STR-Ferrari	1:38.141	1:37.842	1:40.142	19
7	11	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:37.948	1:37.928	1:40.309	21
8	3	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:38.738	1:37.859	1:40.631	19
9	7	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:38.595	1:38.336	1:40.721	18
10	14	Sebastien Bourdais	STR-Ferrari	1:38.622	1:38.417	1:40.750	18
11	8	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	1:38.667	1:38.428		15
12	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:38.268	1:38.435		12
13	12	Timo Glock	Toyota	1:38.532	1:38.499		14
14	10	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:38.559	1:38.515		15
15	6	Nelsinho Piquet	Renault	1:38.787	1:38.744		15
16	16	Jenson Button	Honda	1:38.880			6
17	9	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	1:39.235			9
18	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	1:39.268			10
19	17	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:39.811			10
20	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	1:39.943			9

Silverstone friday: Massa crashes, Ecclestone announces British GP moving to Donnington

Formula 1 returned to Silverstone this weekend for the British Grand Prix for the second to last GP to be held at the historic circuit. Bernie Ecclestone announced this weekend that the British GP will be moving to Donnington Park starting in 2010.

The loss of Silverstone is a great one for the history of the sport. Silverstone has been a part of Grand Prix racing since the late 1940’s and hosted the first Formula 1 World Championship GP in 1950.

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