Peerless Lewis Hamilton waited out a torrential downpour before snatching pole position at the Malaysian Grand Prix in a wet and wild qualifying session on Saturday.
The Mercedes driver and reigning world champion set a fastest time of 1 min, 49.834 sec, ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, after rain halted qualifying for 35 minutes.
The commanding drive from Hamilton, hit by mechanical problems this week, will fuel his charge towards a second race win after he dominated the season-opener in Australia. Vettel was the day’s other big winner, and he whooped and hollered to his team as he seized second place from Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg in the dying seconds.
Rosberg was relegated to third on the grid, ahead of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat, with 17-year-old Max Verstappen starting from sixth in Sunday’s race.
Starting grid: First row: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 1:49.834, Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 1:49.908; Second row: Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) 1:50.299, Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) 1:51.541; Third row: Daniil Kvyat (Red Bull) 1:51.951, Max Verstappen (Toro Rosso) 1:51.981; Fourth row: Felipe Massa (Williams) 1:52.473, Romain Grosjean (Lotus) 1:52.981; Fifth row: Valtteri Bottas (Williams) 1:53.179, Marcus Ericsson (Sauber) 1:53.261; Sixth row: Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 1:42.173, Pastor Maldonado (Lotus) 1:42.198; Seventh row: Nico Hulkenberg (Force India) 1:43.023, Sergio Perez (Force India) 1:43.469; Eighth row: Carlos Sainz Jr. (Toro Rosso) 1:43.701, Felipe Nasr (Sauber) 1:41.308; Ninth row: Jenson Button (McLaren) 1:41.636, Fernando Alonso (McLaren) 1:41.746; Tenth row: Roberto Merhi (Marussia) 1:46.677 20, Will Stevens (Marussia). — Agencies
