Mark Webber mastered the wet and stormy conditions in Malaysia to place his Red Bull on pole, giving the team their third consecutive pole position in 2010 and just the second career pole for the Australian.
Webber emerged at the start of final qualifying to be the only driver gambling on the intermediate tyre in the wet. Nico Rosberg, his Mercedes GP shod in full wet tyres, was a distant second behind Webber, with compatriot and Red Bull driver Vettel starting from third. Adrian Sutil popped up for Force India in fourth place, a great position for a team normally happy to make the final qualifying session. Sutil is a proven wet racer who reveled in the conditions yet again.
The inspired tyre decision for Webber was executed brilliantly by the Aussie, and goes along way to atone for his disappointing performance in Melbourne. Webber paid tribute to his engineer Ciaron Pilbeam for the gutsy choice: “It was starting to spit at the end there but in sections it was definitely the tyre to be on, and in other places it was a risk to throw it off,” he said.
This is a stark contrast to the disastrous tyre choice made by Webber and Red Bull at Melbourne when a promising start was thrown away by Webber staying on intermediates for too long in drying conditions. However, the previous Grand Prix becomes history very quickly and hopes will be high at Red Bull. Race reliability has been a serious downfall for the team, but Webber shrugged off his legendary bad luck: “We know Sundays we haven’t executed the cleanest races this year,” he acknowledged. “The guys have worked like hell in Milton Keynes and Viry, we are doing our utmost to execute those Sunday afternoons.”
To add a further Easter bonus for the Red Bull team, nearest rivals Ferrari and McLaren were caught out by the conditions. Having failed to set a competitive Qualifying One time in the relative dry, further rain hit the track and the drivers for both teams were unable to set a competitive time and were knocked out as big scalps in the first session.
Hamilton admitted McLaren made the wrong call: “It was one of those days. It’s been a good weekend so far, but we didn’t expect it to rain anymore and it got wetter and wetter and couldn’t get the time, so. Hard work tomorrow, for sure but I’ll do my best.” Button also added: “We read it wrong, basically. We thought nothing else was coming so we waited and it was obviously the wrong thing to do […] Very disappointing, and a very strange session with both McLarens out and both Ferraris out.”
The other news was the progression of Lotus driver Heikki Kovaleinen to Q2 for the first time in the new team’s short history – and coming at their home track. The team were delighted with the news: “I’m speechless! What a day!” said team Principal Tony Fernandes. “To get 15th place in our home country, in front of our home crowd is amazing. I’m over the moon and just so excited.”
Their enthusiasm is infectious, and hopefully the Malaysian public gets behind the team in a serious way with generally poor crowds in attendance so far. A very exciting race is expected tomorrow with the Ferraris and McLarens at the back of the pack and the usual scrap at the front of the grid.
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