Lewis Hamilton achieved his second successive pole position in the new era of Formula 1 at Sepang, following a rain-delayed qualifying session.
The heavy rain caused a 50-minute delay to the action. Once Q1 was underway, the call on using the right wet weather tyres was crucial in getting track position and speed.
Hamilton’s first flying lap of one minute, 59.431 seconds was respectable enough to secure pole position.
By securing pole, Lewis Hamilton has now equalled Jim Clark’s record of 33 pole positions in Formula 1. An impressive achievement.
His margin over the four-time world champion was small though, just 55 thousandths of a second faster than Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel.
Nico Rosberg showed disappointing pace on his first flying lap, ending up only fourth fastest, but with track conditions a little worse in the closing stages, he did enough to improve to third.
Fernando Alonso was the driver he bumped down to fourth, although the Spaniard was fortunate to make Q3 after surviving a collision with Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kvyat at Turn 9 during Q2.
The Spaniard suffered front-left suspension damage in the clash, which happened when he was struggling back to the pits on the intermediate tyre while most were on full wets.
The Russian had closed rapidly on Alonso and dived to the inside of the slow left-hander, but Alonso turned in and Kvyat slid into him.
That race incident will be investigated by stewards after the session.
Daniel Ricciardo was fifth fastest ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, who was the only driver other than Hamilton to head the times during Q3, with Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg seventh.
Behind him was Kevin Magnussen, who started Q3 on intermediates but pitted to change to wets, salvaging eighth position while team-mate Jenson Button stuck with the inferior tyre and ended up slowest in tenth.
Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Jean-Eric Vergne was the other driver to reach the top ten shootout, ending up ninth.
Williams pairing Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas were the big-name casualties during Q2.
With everyone setting their times using wet Pirellis during the middle segment of the session, the Williams FW36 again struggled for traction in the low-grip conditions. And the pair ended up P13 and P14 respectively.
Vergne prevailed in a tense battle for the final Q3 slot, bumping his Toro Rosso team-mate Kvyat from the position in the final seconds of the session.
Sauber driver Esteban Gutierrez ended up P12 ahead of the Williams duo, with Lotus driver Romain Grosjean suffering a late spin and unable to do better than P16 after making Q2 for the first time this year.
Pastor Maldonado was unable to join his Lotus team-mate in the second phase of qualifying, ending up the fastest of those to miss the Q2 cut 0.385 seconds slower than Vergne.
After the delayed start, every team apart from McLaren opted to send their drivers out on intermediate rubber in wet conditions, with the majority of the order dictated by pace during the first half of the session.
Sauber’s Adrian Sutil, Marussia pairing Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton and the Caterhams of Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericsson were the others to fall in Q1.
The session was brought to a premature close when Ericsson lost it on a wet kerb at the exit of Turn 3 after what the Swede described as a “silly mistake” and spun into the barrier, rebounding and coming to rest on the track.
Qualifying positions, Malaysian Grand Prix:
1. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m59.431s
2. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m59.486s
3. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 2m00.050s
4. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 2m00.175s
5. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 2m00.541s
6. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 2m01.218s
7. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 2m01.712s
8. Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 2m02.213s
9. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Renault 2m03.078s
10. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 2m04.053s
11. Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault 2m02.351s
12. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 2m02.369s
13. Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 2m02.460s
14. Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 2m02.511s
15. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 2m02.885s
16. Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 2m02.074s
17. Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 2m02.131s
18. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 2m02.756s*
19. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 2m02.702s
20. Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 2m03.595s
21. Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 2m04.388s
22. Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 2m04.407s
107 per cent time: 2m05.385s
*Five-place grid penalty for impending Kimi Raikkonen
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was feeling delighted with fourth, especially after his clash with Daniil Kvyat during qualifying. Autosport.com has the details.
Fernando Alonso said he had never been so happy with fourth on a Formula 1 grid, after contact with Daniil Kvyat damaged his Ferrari in Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying.
The Ferrari and Toro Rosso came together at Turn 4 early in Q2, when Kvyat went down the inside of Alonso, who then turned across.
Ferrari was able to repair the car in time for Alonso to resume, helped by a short red flag to retrieve debris from the incident, but the Spaniard said his F14 T was still hobbled.
“I’m so happy with this qualifying – it’s probably the biggest smile for a fourth position in my career,” said Alonso.
“It was so chaotic, especially at the end with a car that was damaged.
“In the right hand corners I could move the steering wheel with one finger and in the lefts I could not even move it with two hands.
“So it was very heavy on one side and very light on the other, and this in wet conditions was not the easiest way to drive the car.
“We managed to put the car out on the track to complete the laps and those laps were enough for fourth so we need to be very happy.”
Alonso admitted that he had turned in on Kvyat unaware that he was there, but also suggested the Russian had been too aggressive.
“Obviously it was an unfortunate situation, wrong place at the wrong moment,” said Alonso.
“I didn’t see him, that’s the truth. I turned in and I only felt the hit, I didn’t even see him before he hit my car.
“I didn’t see a replay so I don’t know where he was coming from, if he was late braking I don’t know.
“For sure it was a surprise on the out-lap with these visibility conditions to have these kind of attacks.
Kvyat said they had discussed the collision.
“We spoke about it and we just misunderstood each other,” he said.
“It’s very simple. I thought he was letting me past. But in the end it’s OK.”
Valtteri Bottas has been given a three-place grid penalty for the Malaysian Grand Prix for impeding Daniel Ricciardo in qualifying.
The Red Bull driver complained that he had been blocked by the Williams in Q2.
“He was on his out-lap,” said Ricciardo of Bottas.
“I’ll have a word with him. There were a lot of times last year, to be honest…
“We raced each other a lot in the junior categories and I thought we had a lot of respect for each other, but it’s a little difficult how many times he’s done that now.”
Bottas had been nonplussed by Ricciardo’s charge.
“I think there was nothing special,” said the Finn. “We were both pushing. For me, there was no incident.”
The penalty will drop Bottas from 15th to 18th on the grid, and he admitted to being surprised at its imposition.
“I thought it would be OK and there would be no penalties,” he said.
“It was a difficult situation – we had a radio problem and in Turn 9 the team told me that I had either a gap in front or behind Ricciardo.
“So I thought I would try to stay in front. Obviously he was coming very quickly and it was a bit closer in the last few corners than maybe it should’ve been.
“It didn’t cost him anything in the end and I wasn’t sure whether he was on a timed lap or not.”
Source: Autosport.com
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton was delighted to make it two poles in two races after emerging unscathed from an incident-packed and rain-hit Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying at Sepang.
The Briton saw off Red Bull’s quadruple Formula One world champion Sebastian Vettel by 0.055 of a second in a session with two red flags, a 50 minute rain delay and more downpours throughout that left drivers struggling for visibility.
The pole was the 33rd of Hamilton’s career, equalling the British record held by the late Jim Clark since 1964, and was secured in a time of one minute 59.431 seconds.
“I’m really happy with how well we’ve done over the weekend, but today was incredible, how heavy was the rain?” Hamilton said.
“It was tricky out there for everyone because at the end it was almost impossible to see. I couldn’t see where the track went, where the corners were, where to break.
“I had to bail out of my final fast lap, so it was very close…
The Mercedes driver moved to the top of the timesheets early on before pitting for fresh tyres, but his final run was ruined when he ran off the track after finding it tricky to see in the wet.
That meant his first run was his best lap, and he claimed that it was nowhere near as good as he could have done.
“For the first lap in Q3, we have to be a little bit more within the limit to make sure you definitely get a lap in, just in case you have something like I have happens or there is a yellow flag,” said Hamilton.
“But the most important thing is to get a banker lap, maybe eke out a bit more time. But it doesn’t matter. I got what I needed out of it.”
Hamilton said his last run did not come together because of the visibility issues and some time lost stuck in Nico Hulkenberg’s spray.
“It was very difficult to see – that was the trickiest part particularly at the end,” he said.
“I was stuck behind Hulkenberg who slowed down on his lap. I thought he was coming in, and he looked like he was coming in because he went wide on the final turn, but as I got to start the lap he came across so I was stuck behind him.
“I couldn’t see a thing as it was like driving through thick fog. And that was the lap that I needed and I should have had to really get pole. So I am so glad or happy that the lap I did before was good enough.”
Vettel’s lap was an impressive turnaround for the German, who retired in Melbourne two weeks ago, after he was called back to the pits after only three laps of the first phase of qualifying with an energy store problem.
The champion re-emerged after a reset of the system and became progressively competitive as the rain grew stronger and felt he could have taken pole had he been able to get in another lap in the final 15 minute session.
“At the beginning of Q1 (the first phase), the heartbeat was rising very quickly when we realised there was an issue,” Vettel said.
“Q3 was not perfect. I would have loved to have a second go. My first attempt, I felt there was time to gain here and there.
“It was very close, too close. I should be on the good side for tomorrow but it depends on how good the start is. I’m happy with the result.”
Hamilton’s Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg, winner in Australia, will start from third place with Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso joining him on the second row despite an earlier collision with Russian rookie Daniil Kvyat’s Toro Rosso that required hurried repairs.
Alonso was on the outside and turned into Kvyat with the incident reviewed by stewards, who opted against any penalty.
“I didn’t see him coming, Obviously it was a little bit of an aggressive move on the out-lap with that sort of visibility,” the double world champion Spaniard said.
Source: Reuters
Sauber’s Adrian Sutil has commented that the wet tyres from Pirelli are ‘the worst tyres I’ve ever driven on in F1′. Autosport.com has the news story.
Adrian Sutil has called for Pirelli to revise its tyre compounds, after describing the current wet rubber as “the worst I have driven” in Formula 1.
The German failed to make it past the first segment of qualifying for Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix, and told BBC Radio 5 Live immediately after the session that the wet Pirelli was “the worst tyre I’ve driven in the wet”.
The Sauber driver blamed the red flag caused by Marcus Ericsson’s crash for his early exit from qualifying, but said the Pirelli tyres were too hard given the amount of downforce removed from the cars by the 2014 regulations.
“Not only have we lost 20-30 per cent downforce due to the regulation, they also give us the hardest compound available,” Sutil told AUTOSPORT.
“They’ve made the tyres harder, they’ve got rid of the downforce and now we have no grip. And in the rain you have no grip anyway and a bad rain tyre.
“It’s all over the place. It’s not only us, you can see the on-board [videos] of other cars; it’s like rally driving.”
Williams driver Felipe Massa agreed with Sutil’s assessment and reckons Pirelli should revise its compounds.
“I don’t like them as well,” he told AUTOSPORT. “You go out on the first lap and it’s the best, then you get slower because you lose grip.
“The degradation in the wet, the way the wet behaves, is not good.”
McLaren’s Jenson Button warned the situation could get worse when F1 leaves the heat of Malaysia and races in cooler conditions.
He also reckons high levels of torque coming from the new V6 turbo engines are exacerbating the problem.
“It’s difficult when you have so much torque and you can’t get tyre temperature,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen cars snapping like today before.
“I think some of it is from the power of the engine, some of it is because we’re running less downforce; maybe because they haven’t had so much running on the circuit for some time, with the oils, but it was unusually snappy out there.
“And it wasn’t a fluid feel with the tyre – they give you false confidence in places.
“I dread to think what it’s going to be like when we get to cooler climates.”
But other drivers said they could not feel much of a difference between this season’s wet tyre and last year’s.
Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg and Lotus driver Romain Grosjean reckon the struggles for grip are more to do with the way the engines deliver power, rather than the tyres.
“It is not such a big difference from my point of view,” said Rosberg. “It is just that having more torque available, it is a bit more difficult to put the power down on the exits.”
“It is one of those tracks where it is tricky and there is a lot of standing water,” added Grosjean, who spun on his final lap in Q2.
“We know that they are certainly not the best of wet tyres that we have driven, but I have not felt any big difference from the past.
“We drove inters and extreme, and didn’t have any big aquaplaning or anything, so they are safe.”
As for Jenson Button, the gamble on using the inters didn’t pay off in Q3 and the McLaren driver will start the Malaysian Grand Prix in tenth position. Autosport.com has the details.
Jenson Button says it was “worth the risk” to gamble on intermediate tyres in qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix, because McLaren is not fast enough in the wet.
The 2009 Formula 1 world champion qualified 10th for the second round of the 2014 season, nearly a full second adrift of Jean-Eric Vergne’s ninth-placed Toro Rosso and 1.8s slower than team-mate Kevin Magnussen, who switched to the full wet tyre in the final part of qualifying.
The Brit paid the price for using intermediate tyres in Q3, rather than the full wets favoured by his rivals, but said the gamble was worth taking given the MP4-26’s lack of pace in wet conditions at the Sepang circuit.
“Q3 could have been absolutely amazing. But it wasn’t,” Button said.
“When I did my first lap on inters then came in the pits, at that point if it didn’t rain it would have been a good call.
“I put a new hot set on, because I didn’t think it was going to rain again, because we’d had such a big downpour.
“It was a bit of a roll of a dice. I went out and it rained. It was the wrong call, but we were in a position where we could take some risks.
“We’re not fighting for the front row on wet tyres, so I feel like it was worth a gamble.”
Button took full responsibility for the decision and said things could have worked out very differently had the weather taken a different turn.
“I’ll take full credit when it works, and when it doesn’t work. It’s always a team effort, but the final decision was down to me,” he added.
“When we went back out on the inter, the team said it was on the crossover point, which it was, which was great. It should have worked out for me, but I had three more laps and it started raining again and it didn’t work.
“The lap that I did in Q3 on the inter didn’t feel too bad, and there wasn’t any standing water. It’s so hot here, so with 10 cars running you can very quickly get a dry line.
“If it didn’t rain it would have been the right choice. But it did rain.”
Fernando Alonso and Daniil Kvyat have been cleared of any wrongdoing over their clash during qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver and the Toro Rosso rookie had made contact during Q2 when the Russian dived down the inside at Turn 4.
Alonso did not see Kvyat and they made contact, resulting in damage to Alonso’s car.
“I didn’t see him coming. Obviously it was a little bit of an aggressive move on the out-lap with that sort of visibility,” said Alonso.
The Spaniard, however, qualified in fourth position after his car was fixed in record time.
The incident was investigated by the stewards after the end of qualifying, but they deemed no drive was at fault.
“The stewards do not believe either driver were wholly or predominately to blame for the incident,” they said.
Kvyat will start the race from 11th place. He described the incident as a ‘misunderstanding’.
“It’s very simple. I thought he was letting me past. But in the end it’s OK,” he said.
Source: Autosport.com
Lotus driver Romain Grosjean felt an Q3 slot was possible. In the end, he qualified in P11. Autosport.com has the story.
Romain Grosjean believes he could have gone through to Q3 in the Malaysian Grand Prix had he stopped for fresh wet tyres.
The Frenchman proved that Lotus was making progress as he finished Q1 with the 11th quickest time.
But he failed to match that promise in the second segment after not opting to pit for fresh wet tyres, as many of his rivals did. He dropped down the order later to finish 16th.
Speaking afterwards about what happened, Grosjean said that the team had been so focused on finally being able to deliver some pace from its car after a troubled start to the campaign that it did not think hard enough about the benefit of new rubber.
“It was the first time we have run the car in the wet,” he said. “Q1 was pretty good, and I was happily surprised. It was the same at the start of Q2.
“We were P10/P11, and the grip was there, but the tyres dropped. We did not have enough of a look at it to know we had to pit, and change tyres.
“I did not know how much time we had left. The visibility was quite poor and I didn’t know which tyres we should put on.
“But my extremes were completely gone and the grip was gone, I tried the last lap 150% – and almost went off three times before I spun.”
When asked if he reckoned a shot at Q3 was on if he had changed tyres, Grosjean said: “It would have been on the edge, very close or possible.
“To have changed tyres afterwards is easy to stay, but we were trying to get the state of charge management, the turbo and the car working properly, and all that kind of things.
“It is the first laps we have done, so it is hard to just focus on which tyre to choose.”
Team-mate Pastor Maldonado reckons he could have got through to Q2 if there had not been the late red flag for Marcus Ericsson’s crash.
“Q2 was possible [without the red flag],” said the Venezuelan. “I was gaining quite well. All the data said that we would be able to get there.
“For sure, it’s a lottery when it’s raining. We are not only looking to be in Q2, we wanted to be a bit more forward. But it’s a good starting point.”
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton admitted his pole position was just my banker lap. Still, it was respectable enough to share the achievement with Jim Clark’s record of 33 poles. Autosport.com has the details.
Lewis Hamilton reckons his Mercedes Formula 1 team’s advantage in the wet is bigger than it looks, after setting his pole position time on a banker lap.
The Mercedes driver moved to the top of the timesheets early on before pitting for fresh extremes, but his final run was ruined when he ran off the track after finding it tricky to see in the wet.
That meant his first run was his best lap, and he claimed that it was nowhere near as good as he could have done.
“For the first lap in Q3, we have to be a little bit more within the limit to make sure you definitely get a lap in, just in case you have something like I have happens or there is a yellow flag,” said Hamilton, who just edged out Sebastian Vettel to grab pole for the Malaysian GP.
“But the most important thing is to get a banker lap, maybe eke out a bit more time. But it doesn’t matter. I got what I needed out of it.”
Hamilton said his last run did not come together because of the visibility issues and some time lost stuck in Nico Hulkenberg’s spray.
“It was very difficult to see – that was the trickiest part particularly at the end,” he said.
“I was stuck behind Hulkenberg who slowed down on his lap. I thought he was coming in, and he looked like he was coming in because he went wide on the final turn, but as I got to start the lap he came across so I was stuck behind him.
“I couldn’t see a thing as it was like driving through thick fog. And that was the lap that I needed and I should have had to really get pole. So I am so glad or happy that the lap I did before was good enough.”
Although closest rival Sebastian Vettel nearly wrestled pole position away, Hamilton reckons that if he had delivered what he was capable of then the gap would have been much bigger.
“If I had another lap as Sebastian did, I think I would have been able to eke a bit more time out,” he said.
But Vettel also said he did not produce all that he could have done after missing out on pole by 0.055 seconds.
“For my first attempt I felt there was a bit of time to gain here and there, so obviously very, very close; too close because definitely the margin was possible to go that much faster,” said the Red Bull driver.
The Mercedes Formula 1 team says it is on high alert about the Red Bull threat after another strong performance from the reigning champion squad in Malaysia.
Although Red Bull had come in to the year braced for a tough start to the campaign, it secured its second consecutive front-row start on Saturday.
And that performance has left Mercedes’ senior figures in no doubt that it needs to make the most of any performance advantage it has at the moment because the season may get more difficult.
Nico Rosberg made it clear that Red Bull’s form right now was not a warning signal, because he believes its rival remains F1’s benchmark outfit.
“They don’t need to give warning signals – we are expecting them already,” said the German.
“They are still the absolute benchmark in the sport and they are pushing like crazy. We expect them to close the gap.”
Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff reckons that Red Bull’s rate of recovery in recent weeks meant that his outfit had to maintain an aggressive development push.
“We quickly forget that Red Bull is the benchmark for the past four years, so I feel actually very honoured of being in a situation with our team and in being the benchmark at the moment,” he said. “But we should be under no illusions.
“These guys have won four world championships in the past. We have seen it in wet today and we just need to stay humble with our feet on the floor.
“We need to keep pushing and keep the development curve steep in order not to be overtaken.”
Lewis Hamilton believes that Red Bull was actually in a better position to make gains, as life at Mercedes in staying ahead would be tougher.
“I think the name of the game is to keep applying pressure, keep pushing, and keep developing,” he said. “That is what we have got to do.
“I believe we can do that – at least at the same rate as anyone else. But it is always easier to chase in life than it is to stay in front.
“When you are driving, it is always easier to be chasing someone than out in front and I assume that is the same for most things.
“I don’t doubt that other people will be pushing very, very hard to be closing the gap but we will be pushing just as hard to increase it.”
Source: Autosport.com