SEPANG, Malaysia, March 18 (Reuters) - Michael Schumacher topped the time
sheets in third practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix on Saturday, but landed a
10-place penalty on the grid after Ferrari confirmed they were changing his
car's engine.
"We decided to change the engine," a team spokesman said. "We found something
that could have caused a problem in the race tomorrow and thought it was better
to be safe than sorry."
The penalty is a considerable blow to the 37-year-old seven-times world
champion, who was hoping to build on his second place finish behind world
champion Fernando Alonso in last week's season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
The penalty also put paid to his chances of claiming a 66th career pole
position and surpassing Ayrton Senna's record in qualifying later on Saturday.
Schumacher's Brazilian team mate Felipe Massa has already had a 10-place
penalty imposed after having his engine changed, as has Red Bull's David
Coulthard whose car is also powered by a Ferrari engine.
Fisichella and Jacques Villeneuve of BMW will also have new engines but will
not be penalised as they failed to finish last week's race.
The requirement for engines to last for two races was introduced last season
as a cost-cutting measure.
Schumacher clocked one minute, 34.126 seconds on another hot and humid
practice session at the Sepang circuit, edging Spain's Alonso by 0.054 seconds.
Alonso was just quicker than his Renault team mate Giancarlo Fischella's late
quick lap, with Jenson Button fourth fastest.
Christian Klien's Red Bull ended up fifth despite a late spin, ahead of
McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen. The top six drivers were separated by just 0.728
seconds.
Massa was one of four drivers to spin off in the Saturday's session.
Another was Portuguese Tiago Monteiro, whose poor weekend continued when he
ended up in the gravel after 12 minutes. The Midland driver's car ground to halt
in Friday practice.