Yas Marina, 2 November

Dusk in the desert did not prove propitious for Scuderia Ferrari. At the end of a busy session, Felipe Massa finished eighth and Fernando Alonso failed to make the cut into Q3 and will start tomorrow’s race from eleventh on the grid.

In Q1, both men set good times, doing a first run on Mediums before switching to the Softs, as did all 22 cars on track. Felipe was second with a 1.41.254 and Fernando was fifth in 1.41.397.

Q2 began with a run on the Softs from the previous session and in the last four minutes, everyone switched to new ones. At this point the F138s began to struggle more than expected. While Massa secured the tenth place in 1.40.989 to go through to the final shoot out, Alonso only just missed out, having to settle for eleventh in 1.41.093.

In the final part, Massa went out on track towards the end, doing just one run, using the final set of Softs available. The Brazilian was eighth fastest in 1.41.015. Pole went to Mark Webber in the Red Bull in a time of 1.39.957.