page_title: 2008 Malaysian Grand Prix
section_title: Practice and qualifying
hierarchical_section_title: 2008 Malaysian Grand Prix / Report / Practice and qualifying
caption_attribution_description: David Coulthard driving for Red Bull Racing at the 2008 Malaysian Grand Prix.
context_page_description: The 2008 Malaysian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 23 March 2008 at the Sepang International Circuit, Sepang, Malaysia. It was the 2nd race of the 2008 Formula One season. The 56-lap race was won by Kimi Räikkönen for the Ferrari team after starting from second position. Robert Kubica finished second in a BMW Sauber car, with Heikki Kovalainen third in a McLaren.
  It was an all-Ferrari front row, as Felipe Massa started from pole position, with Räikkönen alongside. The McLarens of Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton had been expected to line up behind the Ferraris on the second row, but both drivers were given five-place grid penalties post-qualifying for holding up Nick Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso respectively, dropping them to eighth and ninth on the grid. Massa cut across his Ferrari teammate at the start, to stop him overtaking on the run to turn one. The top four of Massa, Räikkönen, Kubica and Mark Webber held station until the first round of pit stops. Räikkönen took the lead after these stops and after Massa retired following a spin into the gravel, the Finn cruised to a victory of nearly twenty seconds.
context_section_description: Three practice sessions were held before the race; the first was held on Friday morning and the second on Friday afternoon. Both sessions lasted 1 hour and 30 minutes with weather conditions dry throughout. The third session was held on Saturday morning and lasted an hour.
  In the first session, Massa was fastest on a lap of 1:35.392, which was over a second faster than any of his rivals. Räikkönen ended up second, despite running out of fuel during the session, and Kovalainen ended up third, just under a tenth of a second slower than his fellow Finn. Also during the session, the Red Bull Racing machine of David Coulthard suffered a track rod failure on the curb of turn 12, and forced the team to show the FIA clarification that their car design was safe for the Grand Prix, under Article 2.3 of the 2008 Formula One Technical Regulations. Coulthard sat out the second practice session, which saw Hamilton top the timesheets with a lap of 1:35.055, beating Massa by 0.151 seconds, with Räikkönen a further two tenths back in third. In preparation for the qualifying session, many teams put their cars on soft tyres for the third practice session. The soft tyre gives better performance than the harder type of tyre but is less durable than the harder compound. Just like in Australia, the BMW of Heidfeld was fastest, setting a lap of 1:35.019, edging out the Ferraris of Räikkönen and Massa with Jarno Trulli's Toyota fourth, ending up just one-thousandth of a second behind Massa's time.
  In qualifying, Massa earned his tenth career pole position, after recording a lap of 1:35.748 during the third and final session. He was joined on the front row by teammate Räikkönen, although the Finn's fastest time was more than half a second slower than that of Massa. Third and fourth had originally gone to the McLarens of Kovalainen and Hamilton, however post-qualifying, both drivers were demoted five places on the grid for dangerous driving; having completed their flying laps, the McLaren pair and other drivers slowed to conserve fuel on their in-laps, and impeded Nick Heidfeld of BMW Sauber and Fernando Alonso of Renault whilst they were both on flying laps. This led to a new rule being introduced for Bahrain giving drivers a set time to complete in-laps in. McLaren's misfortune was to the gain of the Toyota of Trulli, both victims of the impeding (Heidfeld and Alonso), Heidfeld's teammate Kubica and Webber's Red Bull machine. Timo Glock rounded out the top ten in his Toyota.
caption: David Coulthard's Red Bull RB4 suffered a worrying suspension breakage during practice; the team were allowed to compete after proving to the FIA that the cars were safe.
exif: {}