Formula One: Raikkonen on Pole As Ferrari Falter

Formula one's first visit to Turkey seems to have put many drivers in a spin, not least the world champion as Michael Schumacher made a mistake and dropped to the back end of the grid for today's grand prix.

Even Kimi Raikkonen made an error on his qualifying lap, but it was not serious enough to cost the McLaren-Mercedes driver his fifth pole position of the season.

Jenson Button was less fortunate. Having settled in better than most to the new 5.3km track during free practice, Button was caught out at Turn 8, a very long left-hander that is already certain to join the list of the world's most difficult corners. Button had been fastest of all until that point, but a bump, barely discernible to the eye, unsettled the stiffly-sprung BAR-Honda at 135 mph and caused the Englishman to run wide, dropping him to an eventual thirteenth on the grid. 'It's really disappointing,' said Button. 'In practice today, we didn't have any issues with the high-speed corner, but we could see that other teams were struggling through there. It's a shame because we have been quick so far this weekend.'

Even if the BAR is not quite up to the pace of the McLaren, Button ought to have been able to join Raikkonen on the front row and add further problems for Fernando Alonso, the leader of the championship. Alonso will start from third, beaten by Giancarlo Fisichella and therefore having to deal with his Renault team-mate before getting on terms with Raikkonen.

'The conditions were much windier this afternoon than we had in practice, and we saw that it was a difficult qualifying session for all the drivers as lots of people went off,' said Alonso. 'In that situation, you have to take the gamble of either taking some risks, or being conservative: I pushed hard and came through OK, so it is great to be third, on the clean side of the grid.

'The wind actually surprised me a little bit down the back straight - it was a strong tailwind, and I braked at my normal point, but missed the apex, which cost me some time. We have both cars in the top three and I will go into the race with the aim of trying to beat Kimi.'

Gusting wind has been one of the many complications associated with a circuit that most drivers only got to see for the first time on Thursday. The Istanbul Park track, 30 miles east of the city and in the Asian sector of the country, breaks the mould of recent new circuits such as Bahrain, noted for its bland and uninteresting layout. These two tracks, plus the venues in Malaysia and China, have been designed by Hermann Tilke. The German architect may have accidentally hit on a novel method for making future circuits as tricky as this one. Having followed the usual pattern of penning a layout to run in a clockwise direction, Tilke realised that Istanbul Park might actually be more challenging if used in the reverse direction to the one originally intended.

Thus, Istanbul joins Imola and Interlagos as being the only anti-clockwise tracks in the 19-race season, a novelty that brings problems for drivers' neck muscles that have become accustomed to circuits with a predominant number of right-hand corners.

Significantly, the now notorious Turn 8 goes left in a long arc that will seek out muscular weaknesses and create problems for right-front tyres as the 58-lap race reaches its final stages.

All four tyres on Schumacher's Ferrari appear to be causing trouble already as Bridgestone shows signs of failing to estimate correctly the type of rubber necessary to cope with a track that was an unknown quantity until Friday. His spin notwithstanding, Schumacher was never likely to get his Ferrari near the front of the grid, an uncomfortable fact supported by Rubens Barrichello doing no better than the eleventh fastest time.

'The qualifying results were not quite what we'd hoped for,' said Ross Brawn, Ferrari's technical director. 'After this morning's session [Schumacher fourteenth fastest, Barrichello sixteenth], we changed our approach and perhaps we are carrying a bit more fuel than other people. However, we didn't seem to be quite as quick in qualifying as expected. I think Michael may have got into a top-six position. But the car just got away from him at Turn 9 and that was it.

'Track temperatures did go up four or five degrees before qualifying and, of course, there was a lot of dust on the track with people going off all over the place, so it wasn't easy.'

Schumacher acquainted himself with the 14-turn layout by using a scooter on Thursday, only to find that he needed to revise his opinion of the correct racing line when seated much lower in his Ferrari. It is difficult to see the apex of certain corners thanks to an elevation change in places of 42 metres, the most significant of any man-made circuit on the calendar. The effect of a number of blind brows may be deadened when seen through a television lens, but it will be real enough for 20 drivers as they set out at the start of round 14 of the championship.

Judging by the many minor incidents during practice and qualifying, as well as during the GP2 support race yesterday (won by Alex Premat with Britain's Adam Carroll finishing seventh), today's race is likely to be one of the most eventful of the season. Alonso's main preoccupation will be to keep out of trouble and avoid a first-corner collision such as the one that wiped the nose from his Renault and dropped him out of the points at the last race in Hungary.

Significantly, another win for Raikkonen under similar circumstances will throw the championship wide open with five races to run.