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Lewis Hamilton will have a clear track in front of him when he starts tomorrow’s Malaysia Grand Prix after outpacing quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel by just 0.055 seconds to secure his 33th career pole position.
Hamilton clocked a wet Sepang International Circuit in 1:59.431 on his first run in Q3 that put him ahead of Vettel and Fernando Alonso at the top of the timesheets. The trio, along with much of the field, put on a new set of wet tyres for a final two minute shootout. However, conditions worsened and none of the three could improve on their first run benchmarks.
The one driver who could go faster on his final outing was Nico Rosberg. The German overtook Vettel on his outlap and improved his lap time marginally to secure third spot on the grid, displacing Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso to fourth place.
Daniel Ricciardo qualified in fifth place, ahead of the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen who was in much better shape this weekend than he was in Australia a fortnight ago.
Nico Hulkenberg was formidable in the the wet, setting a lap time of 2:01.712 to take seventh place.
McLaren made a silly mistake by coming out on intermediate tyres in the final leg of qualifying, which meant that they could only qualify in eighth and tenth place respectively with the young Dane Kevin Magnussen having the upper hand. Jenson Button admitted the mistake on the part of his team, saying the intermediate tyres were just not in their operating window.
Qualifying specialist Jean Eric Vergne split the two grey and black cars with a lap time of 2:02.213. His teammate Daniil Kvyat will start the race from 11th place, having been beaten by Vergne for the final spot in Q3.
The Williams pair of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas also failed to make it into the final part of qualifying after the Grove-based outfit left it too late for the drivers to switch to the wet tyres. The duo qualified in 13th and 15th place respectively.
Meanwhile, Lotus had a more reliable day with neither Romain Grosjean nor Pastor Maldonado suffering from mechanical issues. However, results were still hard to come with Maldonado eliminated in Q1 and Grosjean running wide on his flying lap, thereby ending only 16th fastest.
Sauber didn’t have much to cheer about with Gutierrez only managing 12th and Sutil failing to make his way past Q1.
Full Results
1 LC Hamilton (GBR) Mercedes 1’59.4312 S Vettel (GER) Red Bull 1’59.4863 N Rosberg (GER) Mercedes 2’00.0504 F Alonso (ESP) Ferrari 2’00.1755 D Ricciardo (AUS) Red Bull 2’00.5416 KM Räikkönen (FIN) Ferrari 2’01.2187 N Hülkenberg (GER) Force India 2’01.7128 K Magnussen (DEN) McLaren 2’02.2139 JE Vergne (FRA) Toro Rosso 2’03.07810 J Button (GBR) McLaren 2’04.05311 D Kvyat (RUS) Toro Rosso 2’02.35112 E Gutiérrez (MEX) Sauber 2’02.36913 F Massa (BRA) Williams 2’02.46014 S Perez (MEX) Force India 2’02.51115 V Bottas (FIN) Williams 2’02.75616 R Grosjean (FRA) Lotus 2’02.88517 P Maldonado (VEN) Lotus 2’02.07418 A Sutil (GER) Sauber 2’02.13119 J Bianchi (FRA) Marussia 2’02.70220 K Kobayashi (JPN) Caterham 2’03.59521 M Chilton (GBR) Marussia 2’04.38822 M Ericsson (SWE) Caterham 2’04.407
