Sebastian Vettel put in a phenomenal lap to take pole position away from Lewis Hamilton in Malaysia on Saturday.
The German snatched the coveted P1 position in the final seconds as Red Bull and McLaren established a clear gap in pace between themselves and Ferrari. Renault continued to impress, but it was a poor session for Williams and for Michael Schumacher who missed out on Q3 for the second race running.
Qualifying 1
Christian Horner had anticipated rain towards the end of Q3 at 5pm local time, but the conditions were bright but cloudy as Q1 got underway at 4pm with a diminishing chance of showers. The ambient temperature was 30C with the track at 41C as Tonio Liuzzi started the session off in his Hispania. Neither Hispania (HRT) car had put in as many practice laps as the other teams, but they were looking a lot closer to the pace needed to get them beyond the 107% mark and into their first GP of 2011.
Liuzzi set a 1:43.128 on his first timed lap with the team, like Virgin and Lotus, going straight to the soft tyres to get maximum lap time. Little did he know that he'd already managed to get inside the necessary mark. Paul DiResta reset P1 at 1:40.334 and then the two Williams drivers moved it down further with Pastor Maldonado besting his team-mate with a 1:39.176.
This was about to be but in proportion by Lewis Hamilton on hard tyres who lapped his McLaren in 1:37.466 (which put the 107% time at 1:44.288). To Dr Colin Kolles' joy, Narain Karthikeyan was quicker than Liuzzi at this stage. Both McLarens looked fast with Jenson Button slotting into P2 and Sebastian Vettel taking P3.
With twelve minutes left of the session to run, cameras focused on a Toro Rosso sidepod cover lying on the track. Sebastien Buemi had lost an important 'body part' and had to return to the pits. Race Director Charlie Whiting red-flagged the session to recover the offending item and the FIA's technical delegate, Jo Bauer, paid a visit to Toro Rosso to make sure it wasn't a problem that would recur.
When the session resumed, the Ferraris weren't confident enough to put in a fast lap on hard tyres with so many opting to run the one-second-a-lap-faster option tyre. Felipe Massa duly took P1 with a 1:36.744 followed up by Fernando Alonso in P2. Massa's quicker P1 time pushed the 107% time down to 1:43.516 but Liuzzi was already inside it with his opening run.
The Renaults were the team who waited the longest to go out and when they did Nick Heidfeld put his car in P4 and Petrov succeeded him in P4. With four minutes to go, both Lotus cars were ahead of the Mercedes who had to bolt on soft tyres to escape. Schumacher jumped from P.18 into P4 and Rosberg from P.19 into P9. It didn't look convincing, but it was enough.
The Force Indias and the Williams cars looked like they'd provide the P18 driver to join the new teams at the back. Paul Di Resta jumped ahead of the Williams cars and so in the dying seconds it was Rubens Barrichello versus Pastor Maldonado to see who got left in P18. In the end neither Williams improved their positions and it was rookie Maldonado who lost out.
So out went:
18. Maldonado
19. Kovalainen
20. Trulli
21. Glock
22. D'Ambrosio
23. Liuzzi
24. Karthikeyan.
It had been a good session for the Lotus team despite finishing in their familiar best-of-the-newbies position. They were just half a second shy of the Williams team yet weren't running KERS which would account for all of that difference. Liuzzi improved to be a whole second inside Karthikeyan but both were inside the 107% mark by a second. On one of the most aerodynamically critical circuits it was one hell of a result.
Qualifying 2
Mark Webber had been lurking back down in P15 at the end of the first session unable to get a balance on his car. So he was out early in Q2. Lewis Hamilton was as well but the Mclaren driver was trying a run on the hard tyres. Buemi set P1 at 1:37.975 and Hamilton reset it at 1:37.339.
However it was Webber who set the more meaningful P1 time of 1:36.080. Team-mate Sebastian Vettel beat it by fractions, his 1:35.934 being the first time of the weekend in the 1:35s. Jenson Button was the first McLaren driver to venture onto the significantly faster soft tyre and made everyone sit up with an incredible 1:35.569.
For the second session running the Renault drivers sat it out till the last minute for their single lap on soft tyres. So, going into the last four minutes the positions were: 8. Hamilton, 9. Perez, 10. Kobayashi, 11. Buemi, 12. Alguersuari, 13. Barrichello, 14. Heidfeld, 15. Petrov, 16. Sutil, 17. DiResta - the last four not having put in a time.
Significantly, although both Ferraris had run once on soft tyres and were inside the top seven, they didn't feel safe - knowing that Petrov and Heidfeld were quick and that Hamilton was likely to go past them. So they went out again. Heidfeld took P4 and then Petrov took P4 and then Alonso took P4 off Petrov as Lewis Hamilton couldn't quite match his McLaren team-mate and finished the session in P2.
Hamilton's re-entry into the top ten - after he had fallen down to P11 - pushed Nico Rosberg into P11. Kamui Kobayashi then put his Sauber up into a brilliant P8 demoting Michael Schumacher to P10. Michael's next lap didn't improve his position from P10 but Rosberg had a single flyer left and jumped up to P6 eliminating Michael from Q3.
So out went:
11. Schumacher
12. Buemi
13. Alguersuari
14. DiResta
15. Barrichello
16. Perez
17. Sutil
It was another failure to make Q3 for Schumi who ended up 0.6 slower than his team-mate, but there were significant victories for DiResta who outqualified Adrian Sutil for the second race running and on a track he'd never seen before, whereas Perez who had more running than the Scot, was a long way short of senior team-mate Kobayashi.
Qualifying Three
With only McLaren and Red Bull having saved two sets of soft tyres for the final run it was four cars out on the track early, with the rest joining in at the end. Lewis Hamilton looked to be taking a very slow outlap before setting an amazing 1:35.000 provisional pole time.
Jenson Button, although faster in the first sector could only manage a 1:35.371 to take P2 which was immediately taken from him by Mark Webber and immediately taken from him by Vettel. So the order after the first runs was Mclaren, Red Bull, Red Bull, McLaren.
Fernando Alonso was the first of the one-lap-only brigade and took P5, while Nick Heidfeld restored his position as Renault pace-setter with P6.
It was all about the second runs of the four front-running cars. Webber was across the line first and stayed P3, Hamilton came through and increased his advantage with a 1:34.974 (the first sub-1:35 lap), Button improved his time but couldn't beat either of them with a 1:35.200. It was all down to Sebastian Vettel. The German finally put in some fastest sector times and crossed the line with the second sub-1:35 lap of 1:34.870.
He had snatched pole by a fraction. Though the Red Bull team were celebrating, the margin of their advantage in comparison to the previous GP was tiny. Fernando Alonso will also be satisfied to have qualified in fifth to keep in touch with the front-runners, even though he is 0.6 down on fourth-placed Button. Team-mate Felipe Massa finished in P7 behind Heidfeld and in front of Petrov.
Tomorrow, the race will be about tyre management and possible rain and all the strategy decisions that go hand in hand with that. Although the battle for pole was an interesting exposition of where Mclaren, Red Bull and Ferrari sit in terms of raw pace, what we see on Sunday might bear no relation to it at all.
FH
Times
01. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 01:34.870
02. Lewis Hamilton McLaren 01:34.974
03. Mark Webber Red Bull 01:35.174
04. Jenson Button McLaren 01:35.200
05. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 01:35.802
06. Nick Heidfeld Renault 01:36.124
07. Felipe Massa Ferrari 01:36.251
08. Vitaly Petrov Renault 01:36.324
09. Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP 01:36.809
10. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber 01:36.820
11. Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP 01:37.035
12. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso 01:37.160
13. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso 01:37.347
14. Paul di Resta Force India 01:37.370
15. Rubens Barrichello Williams 01:37.496
16. Sergio Perez Sauber 01:37.528
17. Adrian Sutil Force India 01:37.593
18. Pastor Maldonado Williams 01:38.276
19. Heikki Kovalainen Team Lotus 01:38.645
20. Jarno Trulli Team Lotus 01:38.791
21. Timo Glock Virgin Racing 01:40.648
22. Jerome d' Ambrosio Virgin Racing 01:41.001
23. Vitantonio Liuzzi HRT F1 Team 01:41.549
24. Narain Karthikeyan HRT F1 Team 01:42.574
