Qualification: Button on pole ahead of Trulli in Malaysia

The second qualifying session of the 2009 Formula 1 season took place and once again it is Jenson Button in the Brawn GP who takes pole position, this time in Malaysia. The Briton is ahead of a surprisingly strong Toyota with Jarno Trulli at the Sepang circuit. Vettel in the Red Bull is once again in third position but will lose ten places on the starting grid due to his penalty from Melbourne.

Eliminated in the first part of qualifying, Massa will start only 16th tomorrow at the Malaysian Grand Prix. Hamilton and the other McLaren of Kovalainen also did not take part in the last part of qualifying. Therefore, Toyota, Red Bull, and Brawn GP are the forces present.

Button thus confirms the form of the Brawn GP cars, which are performing well on semi-urban and permanent circuits. His teammate, Rubens Barrichello, is in 4th place but will start from 8th position tomorrow. Jarno Trulli fought throughout the entire Q3 session with Button, trading hundredths of a second. The gaps are very tight, but the times are especially fast, even faster than the previous two years. Button even recorded a 1:33.784 in Q2, shattering the circuit’s best time. Both men were battling on soft tires.

Behind Trulli, Vettel is once again on par with his new team. He takes the third best time but will start 13th. Barrichello has the 4th fastest time, but it’s Timo Glock in the second Toyota who will start from the third position, thus on the second row. Performing well in free practice, Nico Rosberg in the Williams will also be on the second row.

Webber will be the first Red Bull-Renault on the starting grid despite his 7th fastest time. He is ahead of Kubica and Räikkönen. These two men are the only representatives of Ferrari and BMW in Q3. The same goes for Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard, even though he’s unwell, made it into Q3 by 10 thousandths and limited himself to a few laps in Q3 to save energy. Alonso will therefore be 9th on the grid, behind Barrichello’s Brawn with its 4-place penalty, not 5, thanks to Vettel’s penalty.

Q2 was marked by a poor performance from McLaren, as Hamilton and Kovalainen finished only 13th and 14th, behind Heidfeld and Nakajima. The McLaren team is among the lowest-ranked Constructors. Only Sébastien Bourdais performed worse in Q2. With the Toro Rosso, the French driver was able to qualify for the second part of the qualifications with a very good lap but, wanting to save his soft tires, he couldn’t compete with the McLarens. He also benefited from an error by the Ferrari team instructing Massa not to return to the track to set a better time. The Brazilian was thus only 16th and eliminated from Q1 along with Piquet, the Force India drivers, and Buemi.

The Renault driver made a mistake on his last lap and was unable to take part in Q2. This is also the case for Buemi, who went off into the gravel while having a three-tenths advantage in his flying lap and could have qualified for Q2.

The starting grid has therefore already been shuffled and it will be revealed in a few hours to give you a better view of this Grand Prix.

Results Qualifications – Malaysian GP – Saturday, April 4, 2009: