Sao Paulo - Ferrari's Felipe Massa took pole position for for Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix at the Interlagos circuit in qualifying Saturday while championship leader Lewis Hamilton starts from fourth on the grid.

Massa registered a time of 1 minute 12.368 seconds for the 4.309- kilometre circuit to claim a third pole in succession at his home GP while Toyota's Jarno Trulli caused a major surprise by taking the second spot on the front row in 1:12.737 minutes.

London - Nicolas Anelka netted a hat-trick as Chelsea crushed Sunderland 5-0 on Saturday to go top of the English Premier League table on goal difference.

Alex and Frank Lampard scored the other goals to lift Chelsea alongside Liverpool on 26 points, but with a better goal difference. Liverpool can regain the lead if they avoid defeat in the day's late match at Tottenham Hotspur.

Champions Manchester United edged out high-flying Hull City 4-3 to go third above Arsenal, who were stunned 2-1 at lowly Stoke City.

Kassel, Germany - German-Croat author Marica Bodrozic was awarded the German Language Culture Prize on Saturday.

Hamburg - Hoffenheim thrashed Karlsruhe 4-1 to reclaim the top spot in the Bundesliga on Saturday, while champions Bayern Munich grabbed a 3-1 win over Arminia Bielefeld to move to third.

Bosnia-Herzegovina striker Vedad Ibisevic and Nigerian Chinedu Obasi eached bagged two as Hoffenheim swept to a fifth successive victory.

It puts Rolf Rangnick's side onto to 25 points from 11 games, one more than Bayer Leverkusen, who had gone top overnight after defeating Wolfsburg 2-0.

Dhaka - Dhaka on Saturday made a formal request to the United Nations for assistance to rescue two Bangladeshi development workers abducted in war-torn Afghanistan last month.

"We have sought assistance from the United Nations to rescue abducted Bangladeshi workers," the foreign affairs adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, told reporters after the talks with visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Stuttgart - Porsche joined other German carmakers Saturday in announcing a temporary halt to production because of dwindling sales triggered by the global economic crisis.

A spokesman for the sports carmaker in Stuttgart said the company was extending the Christmas holiday period for workers by three days.

He said the company's main plant at Zuffenhausen would remained closed from December 22 until January 9, 2009.