The Brawn-Mercedes drivers topped the times in all three qualifying sessions with Rubens going quickest at the end of Q1 on the soft option tyre and Jenson posting the fastest lap of Q2 on his first set of options having used the harder prime tyre for his previous runs. Both drivers completed two runs in Q3 with Jenson coming out on top to secure his second pole of the season.
BrawGP
Ross Brawn, team principal:
“It was a great qualifying performance from Jenson and the team today particularly as we had some issues with the balance of the car in yesterday’s practice sessions. At the start of qualifying, there was a distinct possibility of rain so we went out early in Q1 to bank some dry running and from there it was a busy session with the track evolving incredibly quickly. Rubens was struggling for grip under braking which resulted in understeer and he was never completely happy with the balance of his car. With the replacement of his gearbox, this puts him further back on the grid than we would have hoped, however his experience will stand him in good stead in the race. Jenson was much happier with the balance which reflects in his second pole of the season after an excellent lap. It was an incredibly close session and with the prospect of rain in the race tomorrow, we should be in for a very eventful and exciting Malaysian Grand Prix.”
Panasonic Toyota Racing
Pascal Vasselon, senior general manager chassis:
“We are very pleased with this result even if the ultimate target is to be on pole position. Yesterday’s sessions went so-so I would say, we were not completely happy with the car balance and the grip but obviously we have reacted well overnight and finally it has been a very good team result. Thanks to Bridgestone, the tyre situation here is quite easy to handle for qualifying and the race so we don’t expect anything unusual in that sense, which is the opposite of Melbourne when the final laps were dictated by the tyres. So all in all it has been a good weekend so far and we are very optimistic for the race tomorrow.”
Red Bull Racing
Christian Horner, team principal
“A strong team qualifying performance today. Both Mark and Sebastian are looking quick, but we’re just too far behind the double-decker diffusers at the moment. Unfortunately, Sebastian has his 10-place penalty to take, but hopefully he can have a bit of luck tomorrow.”
AT&T Williams F1
Sam Michael, technical director:
“Today Nico had a good qualifying session and we expected that Kazuki would also make Q3, but he will nevertheless race well from just outside the top ten. The cars both ran well, without problems and we are looking forward to a strong race tomorrow and collecting some points.”
BMW Sauber F1
Mario Theissen, BMW Motorsport director
“The rain that was expected for qualifying didn’t come, and the result confirms the picture we already saw emerging in Melbourne. It remains difficult to break into the ranks of the teams with the two step diffusers. Having said this, we have to be satisfied with the positions we have achieved. Due to two drivers having penalties that will drop them down the grid, Robert and Nick will be starting from sixth and tenth. For tomorrow there is also a high chance of rain, which means the order could get mixed up during the race.”
Willy Rampf, head of engineering
“We knew it would be very difficult, but nevertheless we hoped to get both our drivers into Q3. Unfortunately that didn’t work out with Nick. Because of traffic on his final out lap he was not able to heat his tyres up properly. Robert was consistently doing well, and did the best he could. Being sixth is an acceptable grid position with our strategy.”
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro
Luca Baldisserri, sporting director:
“We opted to do just one run on the new soft tyres in Q1 in order to save a set for the following sessions and to do that run right at the start of qualifying as we were worried about the threat of rain. Then we did not react quickly enough in recognizing that the track was improving much more than we had expected and we watched our two drivers slide further and further down the order, to such an extent that Felipe didn’t make it to Q2. Now we have to concentrate on the race. We know our potential over a distance is better than that shown over the first lap and tomorrow we will have to make the most of that.”
Renault
Pat Symonds, executive director of engineering:
“It was a bit cooler as we were running later in the afternoon. The track temperature started at about 40 degrees Celsius and dropped to about 36, although the grip seemed reasonably constant throughout the sessions. It was tough to get into the final part of qualifying but we managed to do it with one car this weekend. The performance is not yet where we want it to be. We have decided to run with quite a high fuel load so that if the weather turns bad tomorrow we will have an advantage. Our strategy will depend on the weather. It is going to be very tough tomorrow. Even starting at 5pm will give us high temperatures and high humidity. If the rain comes it will be intense and produce very difficult conditions.”
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
Martin Whitmarsh, team principal
“We always knew that qualifying would be difficult around Sepang because MP4-24 lacks the aerodynamic downforce needed to match the top teams. That’s no fault of either Lewis or Heikki, who have driven faultlessly all weekend: they just lack the grip needed to get the most from the car through the high-speed corners. Of course, starting 12th and 14th is not where we are accustomed to starting grands prix, but we are confident that the improvements we are preparing for the forthcoming races will allow us to quickly move into the midst of the tight pocket of cars competing for times in Q3.”
Norbert Haug, vice-president Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
“We will start tomorrow’s race from about where we thought we would. We have made some small additional improvements to MP4-24 since last weekend’s season opener in Australia but we still missed out on getting into the top 10 by two tenths of a second. Our KERS certainly helped laptimes in sectors one and three and we hope it will also prove beneficial tomorrow and hopefully help us overtake some of the cars that start ahead of us.”
Scuderia Toro Rosso
Giorgio Ascanelli, technical director
“Once again I am happy with the reliability of our cars: in the five days of running we have had so far in this year’s championship, we have had just one problem with a minor component yesterday afternoon. Getting one car into Q2 is an achievement. Of course, we could have done better, but our level of understanding of the car is improving and the drivers are getting used to it. Today, Buemi made a mistake, but if a young driver doesn’t make mistakes he doesn’t learn and Bourdais did a good job.”
Force India F1 Team
Dominic Harlow, chief race engineer:
“It was a tense session today with a constant threat of heavy showers, but they didn’t materialise. Giancarlo lost some track time with a throttle pedal problem, but recovered well to place a time just 0.05s faster than Adrian. We’re expecting an interesting race tomorrow and we know from last weekend that our race pace coupled with strong straightline speed and a creative strategy could be good enough to score points.”
