Another pole for Button at Malaysia

F1 Grand Prix, GP Malaysia, Sepang International Circuit

Jenson Button has confirmed his form after putting his Brawn GP on pole for the Malaysian GP. The competition was however stiffer than in Melbourne as Jarno Trulli missed out on the pole position by less than one tenth. Glock will start from third place after penalties for Vettel and Barrichello apply.

The Malaysian qualifying is to take place in dry conditions with a track temperature of 39°C at the beginning of the session. The men to watch will likely be the same of last week, although Williams look to be in even better shape while Ferrari may also be a contender, even though they are still using a conventional diffuser.

A lot of drivers are out quickly in Q1. Nakajima is the first, but his teammate, the Toyoa drivers and Raikkonen quickly follow. The latter however messes up his first lap but goes first with his second attempts, 0.3 seconds faster than Button.

The Briton's second attempt however is better, setting 1:35.173 to take first spot. One lap later he slices off another tenth. His teammate Barrichello puts hiself in second, 4 tenths behind Jenson.

Fernando Alonso is again doing just 3 laps, just enough to put himself in a good enough position for Q2, or at least to it seems 3 minutes before the end of the session. Alonso is suffering badly from an ear infection, is dealing with fever and doesn't look good at all.

Just one minute later he's back on track though, as 13th is too dangerous to do nothing. Trulli has meanwhile set the fastest time while Barrichello has dropped as far as 8th position.

The times actually tumbled in the last few minutes, with some very unexpected victims in the end. In fact Massa is eliminated immediately, along with Piquet, Fisichella, Sutil and Buemi. The latter was well underway to move through to Q2 but missed a corner in the second sector of the circuit.

As the sesson evolves, the threat of rain apears to increase, hence several drivers are quickly on track to anticipate possible rain.

Halfway through the sesson, Trulli is fastest with 1:34.250, ahead of Vettel, Button, Barrichello, Webber and Rosberg.

In the closing stages, Button improves to 1:33.784. Trulli stays second, Webber up to third while Glock made up for his earlier mistake and went 4th fastest. Fernando Alonso just managed to get into in 10th place. Heidfeld, Nakajima, Hamilton, Kovalainen and Bourdais are out of the car for today as they were not quick enough.

Q3 still looks to stay dry, and after the first attempts Trulli is fastest, 0.004s ahead of Jenson Button. Vettel and Webber are 3rd and 4th, although Vettel faces a 10 place grid penalty after the Kubica incident at Australian.

Raikkonen then puts himself in 4th while Barrichello also looks set for an improvement. He had an excellent S1 and S2 and crosses the line for 1st place, 0.118s ahead of Trulli. Button however shaves off another 0.470s. Vettel then tops Barrichello while Glock is 4th.

The last man to cross the line is Trulli, who improves but just not enough for pole position. He will be on the front row however thanks to another stunning qualifying session by the experienced Italian.