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Singapore Quali: promising 4th for Kubica, Nick 6
By BMW Sauber F1 Team
September 27 2008
In qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix, Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld both secured promising grid positions. Robert will start the first night race in the history of Formula One from fourth on the grid while Nick Heidfeld qualified sixth .
Neither Robert nor Nick encountered any major problems on the way to advancing to the second knockout phase of qualifying. Robert needed two runs to do so but on his second he set a 1:44.740-minute lap to finish fifth. Meanwhile, Nick qualified for Q2 with his first flying lap by crossing the finish line in 1:45.548 minutes to secure 12th. The German also went out a second time but was hampered by traffic and failed to improve. The fastest time of Q1 - a 1:44.282-minute lap - was set by Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen.

Eliminated: Nelson Piquet, Sébastien Bourdais, Rubens Barrichello, Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella.

In the second knockout phase, Robert and Nick both qualified for the top-ten shootout, with Robert defeating Nick by the smallest possible margin: one thousandth of a second. Again, both drivers completed two runs, but this time Robert failed to improve on his second. Nonetheless, the 1:44.519-minute lap time he set on his first run was good enough to secure seventh and advance to Q3. On his second he run, Nick crossed the finish line in 1:44.520 minutes to finish eighth and also qualify for the final phase. Ferrari's Felipe Massa posted the fastest lap time (1:44.014 minutes).

Eliminated: Jarno Trulli, Jenson Button, Mark Webber, David Coulthard and Fernando Alonso.

In the top-ten shootout, both BMW Sauber F1 Team drivers delivered in great style. Robert succeeded in completing a fantastic second run. With his 1:45.779-minute lap he secured fourth on the grid. Meanwhile, Nick also demonstrated that he is able to match the pace of the front-runners. The German achieved a personal best time of 1:45.964 minutes and will be sixth on the grid for the first night race in the sport's history.

Result: 1st Felipe Massa, 2nd Lewis Hamilton, 3rd Kimi Räikkönen, 4th Robert Kubica, 5th Heikki Kovalainen, 6th Nick Heidfeld, 7th Sebastian Vettel, 8th Timo Glock, 9th Nico Rosberg, 10th Kazuki Nakajima.

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