Fisichella turns tables on confused Kovalainen.

The roles were reversed in the Renault camp following qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix after Giancarlo Fisichella made it into the top ten shootout yet Heikki Kovalainen, who had been the team's pace setter all weekend, didn't.

Fisichella has been modest at best all weekend around the Hungaroring, happy to let Kovalainen, who was second quickest in Friday practice, devour the limelight heading into qualifying.

However, while the Finn was again in impressive form to claim the second fastest time in the first knockout session, he would get no further at the next attempt for a reason he was not entirely sure of.

By contrast, Fisichella, having only scraped into Q2, improved as the session continued and pulled together a lap good enough to guarantee himself a spot inside the top ten. Eventually finishing the day in eighth place, Fisichella was pleased with his effort and even hinted that he heads into the race with an aggressive fuel strategy now.

"I was caught up in traffic and that made things really difficult. I lost a lot of time and I just managed to squeeze though into Q 2. Things then improved and I had a good lap setting a competitive time to make it into Q 3. The car handled well throughout the session and I think we've got every reason to be optimistic for tomorrow's race. It won't be easy so we're going to have to have an aggressive strategy."

Kovalainen on the other hand was mystified as to why his car would suddenly lose the top ten pace he has had all weekend, the Finn suggesting the tyre changes affected the balance of the R27.

"It was a very disappointing qualifying session. I still don't really understand what happened. Everything went fine in Q 1 and then we put on the super soft compound for Q2 before going back to hard tyres on which I'd felt more comfortable at the start of the session. It seemed a logical decision. But unfortunately, I couldn't find the same feeling: the car wasn't the same and now we have to work to find out why so we can defend our chances tomorrow."