Ferrari on front row for the first time in two years

Last time was in 2013,  also in Malaysia..

You can count on rain to mix things up but it looks like Ferrari does have some pace, at least in a straight line which could make tomorrow's 650 meter run to turn one quite exciting.

Shame about Raikkonen,  he should never have been in a position to be stuck behind Ericsson .  

Weird how Rosberg behaved in the closing minutes of Q3,  he certainly made it awkward for Hamilton to pass him and spoiled his lap.   Not sure if Lewis then returned the favor on the final lap  relegating him to P3 but result was a very beaten looking Nico who at the press conference set his sites on Vettel, not his teammate.

Red Bull must be happy with P 4 and P5,  Williams disappointed with 7th and 8th,  the result of being too conservative at the start of Q3.  Bothers and Massa will start behind the Kid in the Toro Rosso,  great job Max!



While you wait for the race you might want to read the interview with Bernie Ecclestone on F1.com.
Along with his declarations of love for Hamilton, you can see why Bernie liked Putin so much with quotes like this

Q: Formula One racing nowadays seems to be driven by meetings and everyone has their own agenda. If you could start from scratch, what would be number one on your agenda?
BE: I think I would like to get back to a modus where somebody has got the responsibility to make decisions. You need somebody to set the direction. Now it takes too long to get things working. 

Q: Have things turned sour since setting that direction has had to be decided by committee?
BE: Somebody goes into hospital because they’re sick and a surgeon might say that they’ve got to have their arm cut off - and they do it, and that’s it. They don’t have a meeting about it. We have meetings.

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m49.834s	-
2	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1m49.908s	0.074s
3	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m50.299s	0.465s
4	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	1m51.541s	1.707s
5	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull/Renault	1m51.950s	2.116s
6	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m51.980s	2.146s
7	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1m52.473s	2.639s
8	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1m53.179s	3.345s
9	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber/Ferrari	1m53.260s	3.426s
10	Romain Grosjean	Lotus/Mercedes	1m52.980s	3.146s
11	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m42.173s	-
12	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus/Mercedes	1m42.197s	-
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1m43.022s	-
14	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1m43.468s	-
15	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m43.700s	-
16	Felipe Nasr	Sauber/Ferrari	1m41.308s	-
17	Jenson Button	McLaren/Honda	1m41.635s	-
18	Fernando Alonso	McLaren/Honda	1m41.745s	-
19	Roberto Merhi	Marussia/Ferrari	1m46.677s	-
20	Will Stevens	Marussia/Ferrari	-	-