Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) has claimed his 38th career pole position and his second of the year in qualifying at the Malaysian Grand Prix this afternoon.
The triple world champion was made to work hard for it though. His Q1 and Q2 efforts were well off the leading pace and were it not for a late shower ate in Q2 it was feasible he may not have even progressed through to Q3. But he did, and with the rain staying, his choice to pit for a second set of intermediates proved to be the decisive factor, setting the quickest lap of Q3 (1:49.674).
Felipe Massa (1:50.587) nailed his last lap, as conditions improved, to pip his Ferrari teammate Fernando Alonso (1:50.727) for the fourth race in succession. It’s the first time Felipe has started on pole since electricity was invented, but the question remains, can he match the racecraft of the wily Alonso on Sunday?
Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes AMG, 1:51.699) finds himself in fourth and was on provisional pole for much of the final session, until times began to fall late in Q3. Mark Webber (Red Bull, 1:52.244) heads the third row and with better timing for his runs could have been further up the grid.
“It’s disappointing to finish fifth. We didn’t get the timing quite right in the last part of Q3, I thought I had more laps,” Webber said afterwards. “We were quick enough, but we went too slow on the lap when we should have been going quick and it meant we didn’t get a last timed lap in. The time doesn’t represent how comfortable I felt in the car today and it’s frustrating when you put so much work in and know you could have done better.”
Nico Rosberg (Mercedes AMG, 1:52.519) will start alongside Webber, who will be hoping he has no mitigating circumstances affecting his start this week.
Australian Grand Prix winner Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus, 1:52.970) qualified seventh, but will start from P10 after incurring the wrath of the stewards for impeding Rosberg during qualifying.
Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso), often behind Jean-Eric Vergne during timed sessions this year, managed to progress to Q2 and will start from P13. Vergne, though, didn’t make the cut from Q1 and will start back in seventeenth.
In contrast to his fellow Aussie, Ricciardo was happy with his result. “Coming into qualifying today, if I’d been told I could sign on the dotted line for thirteenth, I’d have taken it,” he said. “It’s a decent result and we haven’t been that far up the time sheets all weekend in practice.
“We have improved but I still want more. Tomorrow, I plan to move up the order in what could be an unpredictable race. I really want to be in the top ten and get some points on the board early in the season.”
Heavy rain is expected at Sepang tomorrow and it may well spice things up quite a lot for the race. With that in mind the field remains open if rain does affect proceedings you can see any one of the top eight qualifiers grabbing the glory.
[Pics: Red Bull/Getty Images]
UPDATE: The transcript from the post-qualifying press conference has now been added below.
