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.
(meta data) TITLE: autosport.com - F1 News: McLaren drivers docked five places 19 captures 26 Mar 2008 - 27 Apr 2021 About this capture COLLECTED BY Organization: Alexa Crawls Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. Collection: 51_crawl this data is currently not publicly accessible. The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20080326071616/http://www.autosport.com:80/news/report.php/id/66021 My Autosport Align Center Search: Entire website F1 News Motorsport News MotoGP News Daily Grapevine Weekly Journal Ask Nigel Select Series: Formula One F1 Testing Moto 250cc Moto 125cc World Series F3 Euroseries British F3 V8 Supercars FIA GT F1 2008 AT A GLANCE F1 TESTING RESULTS & STANDINGS SUBSCRIBERS LOGIN Username: Password: auto-login F1 NEWS A A A Email Friend GO TO EARLIER STORY GO TO THE NEWS INDEX GO TO NEXT STORY McLaren drivers docked five places By Jonathan Noble Saturday, March 22nd 2008, 11:33 GMT Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen have each been moved five places down the grid for blocking rival drivers in qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix. The McLaren pair were investigated by the stewards after qualifying following claims that they had impeded Nick Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso in the closing stages of the session. The two drivers were driving slowly back to the pits, having completed their final qualifying efforts, while other drivers were still on their fast laps. Following several hours of deliberation by the stewards about whether or not the McLaren pair had done anything wrong, it was eventually decided that the duo should be punished. A McLaren spokesman confirmed that the two drivers had been moved back five places each. He also said the team would not appeal the decision. Hamilton was penalised for blocking Heidfeld, while Kovalainen got his penalty for blocking both the German and Alonso. It means Kovalainen will now start from eighth place on the grid, with Hamilton one place behind him. BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica, who was lapping on the track close to the McLarens, said he felt Alonso was hurt more than Heidfeld by the blocking. "I saw clearly that Alonso's lap was screwed because of, I think, Kovalainen staying on the racing line," he said. "Nick was a bit more lucky because his incident was before braking, so he could rejoin the good line. "But Alonso, he had to brake inside and he lost for sure there a lot of time. It was quite dangerous." Revised grid: 1. Massa Ferrari 2. Raikkonen Ferrari 3. Trulli Toyota 4. Kubica BMW Sauber 5. Heidfeld BMW Sauber 6. Webber Red Bull-Renault 7. Alonso Renault 8. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes * 9. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes * 10. Glock Toyota 11. Button Honda 12. Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 13. Piquet Renault 14. Barrichello Honda 15. Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari 16. Rosberg Williams-Toyota 17. Fisichella Force India-Ferrari 18. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari 19. Sato Super Aguri-Honda 20. Sutil Force India-Ferrari 21. Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 22. Nakajima Williams-Toyota ** * Penalised for blocking ** Penalised for his crash in Australia Go to earlier story Go to the News Index Go to next story RELATED STORIES Theissen expects imminent qualifying tweak FIA urged to change qualifying rules McLaren lament 'unfortunate incident' Heidfeld welcomes stewards' ruling Q & A with Fernando Alonso Alonso critical of McLaren drivers McLaren defend drivers in qualifying row Q & A with Nick Heidfeld Heidfeld says McLaren duo cost him third McLaren drivers summoned by stewards Alonso and Heidfeld complain to stewards RELATED LINKS Get autosport.com news alerts to your mobile Enter the Autosport Fantasy League F1 2008 ADS BY GOOGLE © 2008 AUTOSPORT.COM TERMS OF SERVICE PRIVACY POLICY CONTACT US PUBLISHED BY
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2008 Malaysian Grand Prix
Report.:Practice and qualifying.

 "The first corners of my last lap went smoothly, but then there were several cars driving very slowly on their in-laps. Apparently they had no information that the qualifying was still going on. Before Turn Four I lost a lot of time because both McLarens were cruising on the racing line. I think this has cost me about two tenths of a second, which would have meant being third instead of seventh. I just couldn't drive on the line I wanted and, even more importantly, could not brake were I wanted."
 Nick Heidfeld, on the McLaren drivers' antics.[11] 
 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.