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Jenson had struggled with set up all day on Friday whilst Lewis was fastest throughout practice but that all means nothing now the rain has come. Into quali and the teams had 4 sets of inters and 3 sets of full wets for the weekend so it was critical to try and preserve tyres for the race.
As the session started most of the teams were out straight away but Mclaren and Ferrari decided to wait as their weather reports suggested the first rain storm was to be the only one and how wrong could they have been.
The teams on inters were able to put banker laps in but Mclaren and Ferrari struggled as the rain came again and they simply weren't quick enough on their full wets. Eddie Jordan commented it was a disgrace as the 2 top teams should know better and he was quite scathing of their decision.
Sebastian (Buemi) was the first to register a quick lap whilst all the big guns sat it out Then Sebastian put in a quick one followed by Kubica. With 12 mins to go all the teams were out and it was obvious the second downpour was going to hamper Lewis, Fernando and Felipe and they were stuck in 19, 20 and 21st places which was really what they deserved.
Jenson slid out into the gravel trap on turn 5 and was to take no further part so he finished his day in 17th as a miserable day for the Mclaren & Ferrari's continued.
The interest wasn't for once up front as the drop outs from Q1 made interesting reading. Trulli (17), Fernando (19), Lewis (20), Felipe (21) followed by those one would sadly expect to go out in Q1, Karun (22), Bruno (23) and Lucas (24).
What a prospect we now had with some of the new teams elevated into Q2. Jenson admitted after Q1 the team had got it wrong as they should have gone out on inters at the very start of quali and put bunker laps in and not sat it out in the garage. Was the decision naive (I don't think so), was it bravado (I don't think so either) so that leaves a degree of arrogance believing they can't be beaten in Q1!
Into Q2 and the top 17 looked very different as Vitaly put in a 1.48 only to be usurped by the rain meister, Michael but the places kept changing throughout as we still had big guns such as Sebastian, Mark, Nico and Robert.
However, None of the top 10 were safe at any time as the times changed constantly but eventually we lost (Vitaly (11), Pedro (12), Sebastian (Buemi) (13), Jaime (14), Heikki (15), Timo (16) and of course Jenson who only finished 17th from his time from Q1.
At the end of Q2 it was Sebastian (1), Robert (2), Adrian (3), Nico (Hulkenberg) (4), Nico (5), Robert (6), Mark (7), Vitantonio (8), Rubens ((9) and last but not least Michael (10).
The weather didn't improve much for Q3 with another downpour at the start. Less than 3 minutes in and with all the teams on full wets it was still considered dangerous and Red flagged which is always unnerving for the teams. The standing water at Malaysia once again playing havoc with proceedings.
Yet, out came the gladiators with 7.17 mins to go onto a very wet track with rivers running across. All the teams, apart from Mark were on full wets with both Force India's leading the field.
As Red Bull had its 2 cars on alternate tyres it was obvious one of them would stamp their authority on proceedings. Mark grabbed his Red Bull by the scruff of its neck and put in a stunning 1.49.327, some 1.3 secs in front of the rest.
After Mark it was Nico out qualifying his more experienced rain meister team mate once again followed by Sebastian in the second Red Bull and completing row 2 was Adrian again putting that Force India in the lead group.
With a stunning drive Nico (Hulkenberg) confirmed his F2 talent starting the third row with Robert, the fourth row was Rubens and Michael and rounding out the top 10 was Kamui and Vitantonio.
After the mayhem it only goes to prove the best teams in the world with the very finest technology can make catastrophic blunders and they really do not deserve any better. To be outshone by even some of the new teams must be very gauling for them and so it should.
From an armchair point of view it will make the grand prix tomorrow very exciting so we will have to see what 3 world champions and Felipe can do from their lowly grid positions. Let us all hope it is a safe race and gives us the excitement Australia did.
