Rubens Barrichello had to settle for 4th place, but he was also handed a 5-place grid penalty for changing his gearbox. He’ll therefore start tomorrow’s race from 8th place.
Button and Trulli were practically the two drivers to watch on Saturday, as they exchanged spots on top of the field throughout the three qualifying sessions at Sepang. It was quite obvious it would come down to them to set the front row, only Button did everything right to come first.
Fifth overall was Toyota’s Timo Glock, followed by Williams’ Nico Rosberg, Red Bull’s Mark Webber, BMW’s Robert Kubica and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen. All these driver will, however, be promoted 2 places on the grid, due to the aforementioned penalties handed to Vettel and Barrichello. Last inside the Top 10 was Renault’s Fernando Alonso, who decided to do only one lap in the first part of Q3 and pit for the rest of the session.
The first 20 minutes of the Saturday qualifying were not incident-free, as Alonso made a short visit to the run-off area in the mid-session. However, the Spaniard did manage to get things done and qualify for Q2, something that Ferrari’s Felipe Massa found it particulary hard on Saturday.
Although the Ferrari duo looked very strong coming to Malaysia – as announced by the team itself – Kimi Raikkonen finished the first qualifying session in 14th place, while Massa could only manage 16th. The Brazilian was clearly the shock of the day, as he had to pay tribute to a mechanical problem with his Ferrari F60 and decided to pit for the final few minutes of Q1. His initial time – recorded in the first part of the session – was 0.135 seconds short of making the Top 15.
Next were the two McLaren drivers, who both failed to make the Q1 after only managing the 13th and 14th times (Hamilton and Kovalainen respectively) of the second qualifying session. Joining them was BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld, Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima and Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Bourdais.
Force India were again "prohibited" from Q2, as both Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil failed to even challenge for the second qualifying session on Saturday. Hadn’t it been for Sebastien Buemi’s mistake in the dying seconds of Q1 – when he lost control of his car and went to the run-offs – the Force India duo would have been bottom of the pack once again.
Piquet disappointed once again – although he admitted he’s not satisfied with the performance of his Renault R29 – as he only managed the 17th best time of the day.
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