Tenth of a Second In It

Qualifying took place today for the second grand prix of the Formula One season, at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia. The good news is that all 24 drivers will be competing in tomorrow's race as no-one fell under the 107% rule.

Q1 went pretty much as expected with the old six new constructors plus one. Again Hispania bring up the rear with Liuzzi qualifying ahead of Karthikeyan but both will be glad to drive in their first race of the season. Virgin remained the in the middle of the three 'lesser' constructors with Glock beating D'Ambrosio to 21st place. That means the Lotus team came out on top with Kovalainen finishing ahead of Trulli. The other driver to miss out on Q2 was Pastor Maldonado of Williams. Surprisingly, Massa was the fastest man in Q1.

Q2 saw Jenson Button as the fastest man as the middle order was sorted out. Adrian Sutil didn't complete a time so automatically qualified in seventeenth place. Perez may be disappointed to be sixteenth in the Sauber behind Barrichello who was almost ousted but Maldonado in Q1. Di Resta qualifies ahead of his Force India teammate Sutil for the second time in an impressive fourteenth. The two Toro Rosso's finished one behind the other with Buemi beating Alguersuari. The final man to fall from Q2 was a miserable Michael Schumacher who his still fighting his Mercedes car rather than driving it smoothly.

Q3 saw the top two separated by just a tenth of a second with third and fourth not so far behind either. Kobayashi completed a quiet qualifying in tenth for Sauber with Rosberg finishing over a second quicker than teammate Schumacher in ninth. Renault keep up their promising start with Petrov in eighth and Heidfeld sixth, despite his early quick times, Massa becomes the meat in the Renault sandwich. The top five sees Alonso not too far off the pace in the 'damage limitation' Ferrari. Button falls from top in Q2 to fourth with Webber in third. It looked to be Hamilton in Pole up until the very final lap where Vettel nicked it by just that tenth of a second to make it two Poles from two, but the last three races hasn't seen the Pole sitter win the race or even lead going into the first corner.