Hamilton nips Vettel for pole in Malaysia

Lewis Hamilton

In a classic battle of two greats, Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton has taken pole for the Malaysian GP on a rain soaked track. He just beat Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull Renault lemon.

Afterwards Hamilton and Vettel shook hands in parc ferme. They were only 0.055s apart in their pole battle with Vettel able to overcome his cars shortcomings with raw talent.

The rain was torrential at one point and qualifying had to be delayed.

Nico Rosberg will start third in the other Mercedes ahead of Fernando Alonso's Ferrari in fourth and Daniel Ricciardo rounded out the top-5.

Kimi Raikkonen will start 6th in the second Ferrari.

Valtteri Bottas was given a three-place grid penalty (15th to 18th) 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."

"I think there was nothing special," said the Finn. "We were both pushing. For me, there was no incident."

"I thought it would be OK and there would be no penalties," he said.

Rosberg in the wet

"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."

More to follow……

QUOTES

Lewis Hamilton
I'm really happy with our result today. It was a very close session and I'm relieved to come away with pole position as it was pretty tense towards the end. The lap was far from being my optimum: I should have been able to eke out a little more time but thankfully it wasn't needed. Conditions were incredibly difficult and it would have been so easy to get it wrong today. At times towards the end it was almost impossible to see if anyone was behind me. The team have done a great job once again, we have a great car, and we now have to convert this performance tomorrow.

Sebastian Vettel
“My heartbeat was rising very quickly in Q1 when we realized there was an issue. We came in and restarted the car, which seemed to solve the problem and after that it was fine. It was good to go out and get another feel for the car in the wet conditions. Q3 was not perfect; I would have loved to have had a second go – on my first attempt I felt there was a little bit of time to gain here and there. It was very close, maybe too close, as if you look at the margin it was possible to go faster, but then if Lewis would have had another chance he would have improved also so, would should, could, at the end of the day it’s good to be on the front row and it should be the good side of the grid for tomorrow – it depends on how our start is, but I’m happy with the result."

Nico Rosberg
I didn't feel very comfortable on the extreme wet tires at the end of Q3, especially on the brakes, but I was still able to improve enough to claim third from Fernando which was the positive for me. We've definitely improved the way we manage the sessions since Australia, so I was the last car to cross the line, but unfortunately the track didn't really improve. It will definitely be a difficult ?and eventful race as the weather is predicted to be the same again, but that will give me opportunities to gain some positions. I'm looking forward to the race and I want to get the best out of it, like we did in Melbourne.

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