Mark Webber splashed to pole position at the Malaysian Grand Prix Saturday after a tropical storm caused chaos in qualifying and left some of his main rivals at the slow end of the grid. While the Australian grabbed Red Bull's third successive pole, Germany's Nico Rosberg outqualified illustrious Mercedes teammate Michael Schumacher for the third time in as many races to secure his first front row start. Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, on pole in Bahrain and Australia, qualified third with Force India's Adrian Sutil an encouraging fourth and Nico Hulkenburg fifth for Williams to ensure German drivers filled four of the top five slots. The talking points, however, were the severe misjudgment of the conditions in the first part of qualifying by both Ferrari and McLaren as well as the surprise of new teams Lotus and Virgin both having cars in the second session. McLaren's 2008 world champion Lewis Hamilton will start in 20th place, sandwiched by the Ferraris of Fernando Alonso (19th) and Felipe Massa (21st), who all left it too late to record flying laps as the rain became heavier over the Sepang Circuit. World champion Jenson Button did manage to squeeze into the top 17 from the first session but was unable to take any further part in qualifying after he aquaplaned off and beached his McLaren in a gravel trap. “We read it wrong basically,” Button, who won a rain-shortened Malaysian Grand Prix last season, told reporters. “We thought that first rain storm was it and there was nothing else coming, so we waited. It was obviously the wrong thing to do. “I hope I haven't damaged anything because I sat in the gravel with the engine running for quite a long time hoping to get pulled out. but that wasn't the case.” The third session was also halted for 18 minutes due to the conditions. Webber gambled on intermediate tires for the final two sessions and the risk paid off when the Australian finished more than 1.346 seconds clear of Rosberg. He praised his engineer for recommending the tires that took him to a second pole position of his career.
