Reigning F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton defeated Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel during the qualifying session at the Malaysian Grand Prix on Saturday.
The win gives Mercedes’ Hamilton the wet pole after clocking a time of one minute and 49.834 seconds despite heavy rains at the Sepang International Circuit.
Hamilton beat Vettel by less than a 10th of a second, F1 officials said.
The defending world champion tamed the wet conditions in Q3 to edge out Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel in the final moments of qualifying, enjoying an advantage of just 0.074 seconds at the checkered flag.
“I think the first lap was quite good,” Hamilton explained. “It’s always difficult because you go out and none of us had driven this weekend in the wet.
“The first lap is always the unknown. You don’t want to take too many risks so you don’t get the lap, but you need a banker.
“My lap was feeling pretty good. The next one was up at one stage, but I just lost a little bit in the lap. But generally, it’s a fantastic job for the team to get us both up here again.”
Teammate Nico Rosberg ended the qualifying session in the third place while Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat took the fourth and fifth spots, respectively.
[Feature photo credit: “Lewis Hamilton October 2014” by Foto: Stefan Brending, Lizenz: Creative Commons by-sa-3.0 de. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 de via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lewis_Hamilton_October_2014.jpg#/media/File:Lewis_Hamilton_October_2014.jpg]