Felipe Massa's race engineer has played down suggestions the Brazilian benefitted from a very light fuel load to dominate qualifying in Singapore.

The Ferrari driver was a huge seven tenths of a second faster than fellow front row sitter and championship rival Lewis Hamilton on Saturday night.

But Massa's engineer Rob Smedley, a Briton, said the performance was more about the driver's form than a strategy disparity.

"We hope we have done the right thing with the strategy, we think we have," he is quoted as saying by ITV Sport.

"We haven't gone silly to try and get the pole position and he has just put it all together," Smedley added.

Given the gap to Hamilton, Massa said after qualifying that he would have run more fuel in Q3 "with hindsight".

The scene is nonetheless set for a tussle at the front between the two title protagonists.

But Hamilton suspects the die might already be cast, given Massa's form from pole on the streets of Valencia earlier this year.

"It's unlikely to be able to overtake, so we might see another Valencia," the McLaren driver said.

Source: GMM