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His last-gap effort notwithstanding, Giancarlo Fisichella could not make the cut for the second qualifying session and the Force India driver will start 18th on the grid for Sundays Bahrain Grand Prix, with his German team-mate Adrian Sutil a row further back at 20th.
Fisichella (1:33.501), who posted the 12th fastest timing in morning's final practice session, was just under one-tenth of a second away from reaching the Q2 before he eventually finished behind Red Bull's David Coulthard at 18th.
After abandoning his previous flying lap owing to an error, Fisichella gave it everything but could not avoid getting stuck in the danger zone and failing to advance to the second stage of the three-leg qualifying sessions.
Sutil found himself stranded in traffic and clocked 1:33.845 to finish 20th. Tomorrow he will be just ahead of the two Super Aguri cars.
BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica stole the thunder from Ferrari's Felipe Massa to grab his maiden pole. Championship leader Lewis Hamilton will start the race from third place on the grid, alongside Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.
Fisichella did not hide his disappointment but asserted he would try to move up a few places tomorrow.
"Malaysia was five-hundredths away, here it was close again so it is really disappointing as we are almost there. We had a problem with the front brakes and especially with the front locking on both laps, so it is a bit disappointing. It is important to be close and try to move up in the race," he said.
Sutil said the circumstances were quite difficult today, especially with just four minutes left after the red flag.
"So everybody went out to do a fast lap. It was very difficult to judge the traffic on the out lap and to find the space, but overall it was quite good.
I feel better in the car than in the last races so we have made an improvement, but the field is very close and it is very hard to reach the top 16. We are close, but not quite there at the moment, but we will for sure improve for the next races," he said.
Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne said the idea tomorrow would be to finish the race for both the drivers.
"Both drivers just missed out on their final laps, with both having a problem with locking brakes, but we know we have a competitive car for the race and we will have to look to pick up positions and get two cars to the finish tomorrow," he said.