Fisichella will start 16th in this year’s season opener while his younger German colleague Sutil will be 18th on the grid, with the team’s hopes of securing a point now depending more on extraordinary circumstances than performance.

At the top, McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton won pole position after warding off a strong challenge from BMW’s Robert Kubica, who briefly took the lead before the Briton outpaced him in the third and final qualifying session.
Fisichella had reason to be frustrated after he failed to reproduce the form that saw him hovering around the top 10 in the three practice sessions. Ironically, just when it mattered most, he clocked 1:26.140 to finish 17th among 22 drivers and hurtle to the back of the grid.

Glock demoted
However, Toyota driver Timo Glock of Germany, who finished ninth, was demoted to 19th for an unscheduled gear box change and for impeding a driver, pushing Fisichella up to 16th place on the starting grid.

Also falling by the wayside was Sutil, who spun out on the 12th turn before timing 1:27.859 to be 19th.

World champion Kimi Raikkonen clocked an impressive 1:26.140 in the first qualifying session before a fuel pressure regulator problem prevented him from coming out for the second qualifying. He will start 16th.

“Considering the weekend we had, finishing just outside top 16 and missing the second qualifying by a whisker is a little disappointing,” a drained Fisichella, who was down with fever on Friday, said. “In the last part of my quickest lap, there was a yellow flag. And there was lot of graining on the tyres and I lost at least three-tenths,” rued the veteran driver, who is into his 13th F1 season.

Force India’s chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne felt the yellow flag denied Fisichella a place in the second qualifying. “Unfortunately, in his final lap, Adrian lost his car and that yellow flag meant Giancarlo had to back off. That delay was enough to deny us a place in Q2,” he lamented.

Sutil, too, admitted he was not at his best today. “The track was dirty and I had problem with the soft tyres, which affected the car’s balance and slowed me down.

“Besides, there was lot of understeer, which resulted in the spin,” he said. Fisichella admitted scoring a point tomorrow would require extraordinary circumstances.

“The dream is to win a point tomorrow, but the idea should be to get through to the end,” he said.
Despite not making the second qualifying, Sutil took heart from the overall show and said, “We were very close to second qualifying and may be we will take that step in Malaysia. We started better than last year and that’s a little success already.”