Massa takes pole under lights

Felipe Massa produced a superb late lap to snatch pole position for Sunday's historic Singapore Grand Prix ahead of Lewis Hamilton.

The Ferrari driver clocked a time of one minute 44:519 seconds under the flood lights on the Marina Bay street circuit to finish sixth-tenths of a second faster than McLaren's Hamilton.

Massa's team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, despite enduring a frustrating time during practice, finished strongly to take third.

BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica will start in fourth place on the grid, while McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen is in fifth.

"The car was perfect," said Massa. "I managed to do a perfect lap."

Meanwhile BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld will start ninth instead of sixth after being hit with a penalty following qualifying.

Race stewards handed the German the three-place penalty after they deemed he had impeded Honda's Rubens Barrichello during the first qualifying session.

Heidfeld was ruled to have entered the pit lane too slowly and was consequently caught by Barrichello on a flying lap.

Honda driver Barrichello, meanwhile, was fined £8,000 for failing to use the deceleration zone after being slowed down by Heidfeld on entering the pits.