Vettel Wins Pole in Malaysia After Wet Weather Session

Sebastian Vettel took pole in the final moments of a very wet qualifying session at Sepang and prevented Ferrari from taking the front row of the race. 

Q1 started in hot, humid conditions, and all of the fastest times of the day were actually set in the first session. CaterhamCaterham CT03United Kingdom, 2013 > 201313 photos
and MarussiaMaRussia MR02Russian Federation, 2013 > 20137 photos
split the bottom of the field.

The rain began towards the end of Q2 and dropped the lap times considerably. Pastor Maldonado was not even able to put a lap in during the session.

Williams continues to struggle. Valtteri Bottas went out in Q3, and Maldonado barely made it into Q2.  

The rain kept up into Q3, and all of the cars were on intermediate tires. At the end of the session, the fast times came quickly. Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton both held the top spot before the session was over. With time expired Alonso grabbed the pole, but then Vettel came around the final corner to take pole by nearly a second compared to Alonso. The last driver on track was Felipe Massa who was not able to take pole but was fast enough to take second and bump Alonso to third. 

The race stewards hit Kimi Raikkonen with a three spot grid penalty for hindering Nico Rosberg on turns 12 and 15. Raikkonen originally qualified seventh but is dropped to tenth. His penalty promotes Sergio Perez, Adrian Sutil and Jenson Button up one position. Rosberg qualified in sixth and did not benefit in starting position from Raikkonen's position.