Quali

Photo: Getty images

Sebastian Vettle edges out Hamilton for pole at Sepang.

Mark Webber in front of Jenson Button on the second row.

Fernando could only manage fifth in his Ferrari.

Nick Heidfeld out-qualifies his team mate vitaly Petrov.

HRT  qualifying both cars for the Malaysian GP.

Nick Heidfeld, P6, R31-04, 1:36.124
“I’m very satisfied as I think it’s the maximum we could have achieved, especially looking back at Friday where we didn’t do many laps at all and didn’t have a lot of time to set up the car. It got faster and faster in qualifying today, but I have to say in Q1 I took it easy then I pushed a bit over the limit in Q2 and lost some time there, but in Q3 I found the golden middle and it was a good lap. Of course, I was a lot happier with the traffic here than I was in Australia.”

Vitaly Petrov, P8, R31-03, 1:36.324
“To get in the top ten today is a good result considering the track time we lost yesterday. We worked hard on improving the set-up in final practice and in the end I had quite a good feeling with the car. For the race, anything can happen, but it’s clear that looking after the tyres will be very important because the degradation is very high here. We will also have to watch what happens with the weather because there is a high risk of rain. I don’t mind if it’s wet or dry.”

James Allison, Technical Director: “We can expect lots of pit action tomorrow”

James, sixth and eighth on the grid – surely that was hard to predict this time yesterday?
We certainly had a troubled day yesterday, but there was no reason to believe from yesterday’s running that the car was struggling for pace so it’s very nice to be sixth and eighth on the grid, very nice to have both our cars in the top ten only having had one in Melbourne.

Does today’s result put you in a strong position for tomorrow?
It will do if we make a good start as both drivers are already in points-scoring positions. However, if we want to convert a promising qualifying into something very good then we’re going to have to do well in what is certainly going to be an interesting race, whether that’s with the risk of rain which is more than moderate and also with the fact that there’s going to be a flurry of pit-stopping.

Pos  Driver                Team                 Time         Gap   
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m34.870s
 2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m34.974s   + 0.104
 3.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m35.179s   + 0.309
 4.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m35.200s   + 0.330
 5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m35.802s   + 0.932
 6.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault              1m36.124s   + 1.254
 7.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m36.251s   + 1.381
 8.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault              1m36.324s   + 1.454
 9.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m36.809s   + 1.939
10.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m36.820s   + 1.950
 
11.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m37.035s   + 1.466
12.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m37.160s   + 1.591
13.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m37.347s   + 1.778
14.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m37.370s   + 1.801
15.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth    1m37.496s   + 1.927
16.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m37.528s   + 1.959
17.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes 1m37.593s   + 2.024
 
18.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth    1m38.276s   + 1.532
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault        1m38.645s   + 1.901
20.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault        1m38.791s   + 2.047
21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth      1m40.648s   + 3.904
22.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth      1m41.001s   + 4.257
23.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth         1m41.549s   + 4.805
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m42.574s   + 5.830